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FROM 



COLONY TO COMMONWEALTH 



STORIES OF THE REVOLUTIONARY 
DAYS IN BOSTON 



BY 



NINA MOORE TIFFANY 



^7 j^/i/ 



/ 



BOSTON, U.S.A. 
GINN & COMPANY 



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^'^X 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1890, by 

NINA MOORE TIFFANY, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



All Rights Reserved. 



Typography bv J. S. Cushing & Co., Boston, U.S.A. 



Pkesswork by GiNN & Co., Boston, U.S.A. 



PREFACE. 



*' Pilgrims and Puritans " dealt with the earhest 
days of Massachusetts ; *' From Colony to Common- 
wealth " takes up the beginnings of the Revolution. 
Children reading either book should consult at 
the same time Higginson's ''Young Folks' History 
of the United States" and Montgomery's "Leading 
Facts of American History." Older readers will 
recognize, as the sources from which these fireside 
tales have been gathered afresh, "The Memorial 
History of Boston," Frothingham's " Siege of Bos- 
ton," and the biographies of Samuel Adams, Joseph 
Warren, and James Otis, as well as Hutchinson's 
History of Massachusetts Bay and many contempo- 
raneous accounts. 

NINA MOORE TIFFANY. 



CONTENTS. 



The English Colonies in America 
Boston in 1760 .... 
The Stamp Act .... 
Thomas Hutchinson 
Samuel Adams. 

I. The Father of the Revolution 

II. The Boston Massacre . 

III. Sam Adams's Regiments 
The Boston Tea-Party. 
General Gage. 

I. The Port Bill and the Regulation Acts . 

II. Gage's Scouts in Worcester and Concord 
Joseph Warren ...... 

The Battle of Lexington. 
I. Paul Revere's Ride 

II. The March of the British 

III. The Skirmish at Lexington 

IV. The Concord Fight 
V. The Retreat of the British 



PAGE 

I 

9 
21 

26 

39 
44 

50 
55 

67 
71 
84 

91 

lOI 

103 
105 
HI 



VI CONTENTS. 

The Battle of Bunker Hill. page 

I . The Army at Cambridge 115 

II. The Fortification of Breed's Hill . ... .119 

Washington . 132 

The Evacuation of Boston . . . . . -145 

Notes 155 

Index • . . . i79 



MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 



Map of Old Boston Fro7itispiece. 

Map of First Settlements 3 

New Amsterdam — now New York . . , . 5 

The Province House 11 

George III 17 

Benjamin Franklin ....... 23 

A Stamp . . . .25 

Thomas Hutchinson ....... 27 

Liberty Tree . . . . . . . . - 31 

Samuel Adams ........ 41 

The Boston Massacre 47 

Pownell's View of Boston from Castle Island . 51 

The Old South 59 

Throwing the Tea overboard ..... 63 

Map of Eastern Massachusetts, showing the Old 

Roads 7^ 

Joseph Warren ^1 

Map of Country around Boston (Massachusetts) . 91 

Christ Church 93 



vu 



Vlll MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 

The Battle of Lexington . . . . . 

Roads to Lexington ...... 

Lexington Common and Meeting-House 

Map of the North Bridge ..... 

Conflict at the North Bridge .... 

General Putnam 

The Hills of Charlestown 

Map of Boston with its Environs in 1775 and 1776 

Plan of the Redoubt 

Plan of Charlestown ...... 

George Washington ...... 

Washington Elm ....... 

The Craigie House . . . . . 

Map of Boston and Vicinity, showing Uorchejter 
Heights 

The Washington Medal 



PAGE 

95 
102 
104 
106 
109 
117 
120 
121 
124 
127 
133 
139 
143 

148 
153 




THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. 
From a Painting by Mr. Henry Sand ham. 



FROM COLONY TO COMMONWEALTH, 



y>^c 



THE ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA. 

When the early discoverers had proved that 
a vast new continent lay west of the Atlan- 
tic, explorers from the great European nations 
made haste to claim portions of it for their 
different rulers. English, Spanish, Dutch, and 
French voyagers sailed along the coast and up 
the rivers, and each, on coming to a place 
which no one else had yet visited or described, 
planted upon it the flag of his own country, 
and set it down on his map as belonging to 
the sovereign whom he served. 

The explorers were followed by traders, the 
traders by colonists. Spaniards settled Mex- 
ico, and founded St. Augustine in Florida. 
The French went northward to Nova Scotia 
and Canada. The Dutch built New Amster- 



2 THE ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA. 

dam, which is now New York, on Manhattan 
Island, and called their possessions New Neth- 
erland ; while the English made colonies in 
Virginia, at Plymouth, and about Massachu- 
setts Bay. 

The English colonies prospered best. Those 
of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay united, 
in 1 69 1, under the name of Massachusetts. 
Massachusetts families spread out into Con- 
necticut and Rhode Island. English settlers 
ousted the Dutch from New Amsterdam, and 
turned New Nether4and into New York and 
New Jersey. They also found foothold in 
Pennsylvania, Maryland, the Carolinas, and 
even in Georgia, which the Spaniards had ex- 
pected to hold for themselves. Then, in the 
French and Indian War, England gained pos- 
session of Canada and of all the land east of 
the Mississippi ; so that the king who came to 
the English throne in 1760 had in his hands, 
by 1763, an unbroken front of Atlantic colo- 
nies, reaching from Labrador to Florida. That 
is, he thought that they were in his hands. 




FIRST SETTLEMENTS. 



4 THE ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA. 

and they might have been, had he known how 
to hold them. But from the beginning, the 
colonists, especially those of New England and 
Virginia, had been used to acting for them- 
selves, and to the end they insisted on keeping 
control of their own affairs. The Puritans, 
who had gained freedom for their church, had 
obtained a good deal of freedom in their gov- 
ernment as well. Indeed, all of the older 
colonies were at first very much let alone by 
England ; and in consequence, whenever a 
king of England undertook to overthrow their 
customs or to meddle with their charters, they 
resisted him as stoutly as they were able. 

For more than fifty years the Massachusetts 
men elected their own legislators, made their 
own laws, and even chose their own governors. 
But in 1686 Sir Edmund Andros was sent to 
rule over them, and though they contrived 
to rid themselves of him, they were obliged 
afterward to submit to royal governors, selected 
by the king. This was a sore trial, but worse 
was to come ; for certain people in authority, 




III '^ *^ 

I ? 



THE ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA. 7 

finding that the Americans were growing rich, 
busied themselves with schemes for guiding 
American wealth into the English treasury. 

There had long been duties laid by England 
on articles brought to the provinces from 
foreign ports. Each gallon of molasses, for 
instance, carried to Massachusetts from the 
French West India islands, was supposed to 
have a small sum, or duty, paid for it upon its 
entrance at Boston. This duty was to be given 
into the hands of the English government. But 
the colonists had long been permitted to evade 
the law, and in reality the duties had seldom 
been paid. Vessels had a way of slipping in 
under cover of the darkness ; their cargoes 
were landed at some obscure point, and hidden 
away in roomy cellars. The collectors of cus- 
toms could not or would not discover the smug- 
glers, and so did not deliver to the king the 
moneys which he expected from them. 

The royal governors, therefore, were ordered 
to make their collectors more vigilant ; and in 
1760 the officials were furnished with papers 



8 THE ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA. 

called writs of assistance, — warrants w^iich 
gave the officers power to enter private houses, 
whenever they saw fit, to search for smuggled 
goods. 

James Otis, a Boston lawyer, spoke out fear- 
lessly against these writs ; but instead of re- 
moving the grievance, the English government 
went on adding other oppressive measures, 
until there came to be a feeling among the 
colonists that they w^ere being deprived of their 
British liberty. A great struggle began in all 
the colonies, — a struggle to keep their ancient 
rights and privileges. This struggle was hot- 
test at first in Massachusetts, and centred 
about Boston. 



BOSTON IN 1760. 

Boston was a queer little, dear little town. 
Its crooked streets went winding about its 
hills in easy curves found out by the cows and 
cowherds ; its harbor was alive with skimming 
sails ; its wharves were busy with arriving and 
departing ships. 

Trace upon the old-time map the ups and 
downs, the ins and outs, of the Boston thor- 
oughfares as they were little more than a cen- 
tury ago. The Treamount stood untouched. 
Nowadays we see only what pick and shovel 
have spared of Beacon Hill ; but in 1 760 the 
three peaks, Beacon, West, and Cotton, rose 
distinct. A few houses had been built on the 
hill-slopes, but the most crowded neighbor- 
hoods were on the level grounds, near the 
water. 

Winthrop's house was still standing, though 

9 



lO BOSTON IN 1760. 

a church, our Old South, had been built on his 
garden-plot. C, on the map, near the picture 
of a church, shows the Old South. 

Another building, the Town House, stood 
in the former market-place, 3.t a. In the Town 
House, or, as it is often called, the Old State 
House, the governor and council and the 
representatives held their sessions. 

Almost opposite the Town House, at ^4, was 
the meeting-house of the First Church, to 
which Governor Winthrop had belonged ; and 
west of the meeting-house, at £, was King's 
Chapel, where the services of the Church of 
England were performed, much to the grief of 
some of the oldest inhabitants, who still hated 
the sight of a bishop, and could scarcely bear 
the thought of having any religious worship 
different from their own in their much-cher- 
ished town. 

Near King's Chapel was a school, e, while 
at d, on Marlboro Street, stood the governor's, 
or, as it was more often called, the Province 
House, where the royal governors usually lived. 




THE PROVINCE HOUSE. 



BOSTON IN 1760. _ 13 

Beginning at the Town House and walking- 
south, a visitor in the old town would have 
passed, as the map will show, the Old South 
Church and the Province House ; then gar- 
dens and pastures, until the long street with 
many names, — that long street is Washington 
Street now, — carried him on through fields 
and marshes to the narrow strip called Boston 
Neck, w^iere the first fortifications were built, 
in Governor Winthrop's day. Strolling back 
over the same route, the stranger might have 
stopped at the corner of Orange and Essex 
streets, to admire several laro-e elms of which 
more will be said by and by. Next, turning- 
down Essex Street, he might have found his 
way along the shore to Belche^^sLane, which ^ 
afterward became Purchase Street, and which 
would have led him past GrifBn's AV'harf to 
Fort Hill. Skirting the hill, he would have 
come upon Oliver's Wharf and Oliver's Dock, 
for Andrew Oliver was a prosperous citizen. 
Of him, also, we shall hear again. 

Perhaps our visitor would have gone to the 



14 * BOSTON IN 1760. 

end of Long Wharf to look off down the har- 
bor. If he found his way through Dock Square, 
he might have been interested in Fore, Back, 
and Middle streets. Fore is North Street 
now, and no longer fronts the water ; Middle, 
which on our map runs into an older North 
Street, is now Hanover ; while Back Street has 
become part of Salem Street. 

On Salem Street was, and is, Christ Church, 
often spoken of then as the Old North — it is 
marked Af on the map. 

Copp's, or Snow, Hill is not far from Christ 
Church. Its earliest name was Windmill Hill, 
because of a windmill that would not work in 
Watertown, and passed its days in idleness 
until brought to Boston and set up upon this 
breezy summit. 

There were quaint and homely reasons for 
many of the old names of the hills and streets 
and coves. Tremont Street was so called for 
its leading toward the three peaks of the Trea- 
mount ; Common vStreet, for its ending in the 
Common ; Beacon Street wound up toward 



BOSTON IN 1760. 15 

the never-lighted signal-mast; Frog Lane, now 
Boylston Street, gave warning of the swamp. 

The people who walked in these straggling 
streets had independent ways, but were, never- 
theless, kindly neighbors, and public-spirited 
ever. The good of the community was still, 
as in Governor Winthrop's time, uppermost in 
their minds. 

If Governor Winthrop, the founder of the 
town, could have come back to it in 1760, he 
might have been grieved at finding a royal 
governor, Bernard, in the Province House, at 
seeing other officials of the crown busy in the 
Custom House, and at noting the extravagant 
habits, gay dress and pleasure-seeking ways of 
a few of the richer families of the town. He 
could not have failed, however, to rejoice in the 
plainer folk, in the ministers, lawyers, doctors, 
sea-captains, ship-builders, master-workmen, and 
mechanics. He would have turned to these 
with confidence, for they were true followers 
of the Puritans of old in their devotion to the 
general welfare. 



1 6 BOSTON IN 1760. 

The general welfare needed their devotion. 
In October of the year 1760 George the Third 
ascended the English throne. 

News of all kinds, good or bad, travelled 
slowly then. It was not until late in December 
that Governor Bernard learned, from a London 
captain, of the death of the second King George 
and of the accession of the third. For about 
two months Bernard had been carrying on the 
affairs of the province in the name of a dead 
king. He thought at first that he must con- 
tinue to do so, for the captain had not brought 
any official announcement of the succession; 
but after waiting in vain for instructions, Gov- 
ernor Bernard decided that the new king must 
be proclaimed. 

On the 29th of December, therefore, the 
town-crier summoned the people to the open 
space at the eastern end of the Town House ; 
the herald blew his trumpet, commanding si- 
lence ; the governor, in his robes of state, 
stepped out upon the balcony and read, first, 
the announcement of the death, on the 25th of 




GEORGE 111. 



BOSTON IN 1760. 19 

October, of George the Second, and then the 
announcement that the present king of Eng- 
land was George the Third. 

Shouts, loyal as those uttered in London, 
arose from the crowd. " Long live King 
George the Third ! " " Long live the King ! '' 

The King ! That title pleased King George. 
" Be king, George ; be king ! " his mother had 
often said to him ; and he boasted that he 
would be king indeed. 

First, he must have money ; and Parliament, 
the body of men who helped the king to gov- 
ern England, proceeded to tax the colonies in 
order to get what was needed to re-fill the 
treasury. 

Now the colonists might have been willing 
to furnish the money if they had been allowed 
to raise it in their own way. They had helped 
England in a war against the French ; they 
would probably have taxed themselves to pay 
their share of the debt which remained to be 
settled when the war was over. They did not 
object to taxing themselves ; but they would 



20 BOSTON IN I 760. 

not give one penny at the bidding of Parlia- 
ment. 

Parliament, they said, had no right to tax 
them. British subjects had always, since the 
days of King John, maintained that they must 
not be taxed by any except the men whom 
they had chosen to represent them. The men 
whom the colonists had chosen to represent 
them did not go to England ; they had never 
formed part of the Parliament ; they met in 
their own chief towns, and there enacted the 
laws of the colonies. They alone had the right 
to tax the British subjects in America. 

Still the king and Parliament persisted in 
their course. According to the letter of the 
law, the king of England possessed the power 
to do nearly as he chose wdth his provinces. 
King George meant to exercise that power to 
the full. He would not see that these prov- 
inces in America were too strong and too 
skilled in taking care of themselves to be 
treated as helpless dependencies, and he went 
on from one act of folly to another until he 
had made a breach that nobodv could heal. 



THE STAMP ACT. 

In 1763 one of the members of Parliament, 
Lord Bute, proposed that the American colo- 
nists should pay a tax on their business papers 
and legal documents. His plan was liked by 
the king's friends ; and in 1 765 an act called 
the Stamp Act was passed. It declared that 
on and after the ist of November, every bit of 
writing showing the sale of a vessel or of a 
piece of land, every bill of lading, every mar- 
riage certificate or agreement of any kind, 
would be worthless unless it bore a certain 
stamp. The stamps, or stamped papers, were 
to be bought of the English government, and 
the extra money thus collected was to be spent 
as that government thought best. 

The passage of the Stamp Act filled the 
colonists with dismay. Benjamin Franklin, 
who was then in England, wrote, " The Sun of 



2 2 THE STAMP ACT. 

Liberty is set : the Americans must light the 
lamps of industry and economy." Those lamps 
were indeed bright; it was by their aid that 
the Americans discovered the path out of their 
difficulties. 

When Governor Bernard, in an address to 
the Massachusetts Assembly, said that Parlia- 
ment maintained its right to make laws for the 
American colonies, the Assembly replied that 
they would not dispute what he said, but that 
they would remind him that their charters 
gave them the right to lay their own taxes 
and make their own laws, and that it would be 
most disrespectful to Parliament to suppose 
that it would be so " despotick " as to tax any 
subjects without their consent. They asserted 
that Parliament would soon repeal the Stamp 
Act. 

What the Assembly said in their councils 
the people repeated in their homes, on the 
streets, in political meetings, and in their patri- 
otic newspapers. " No taxation without repre- 
sentation," was the general cry. Bands of men 




BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 



THE STAMP ACT. 



25 



pledged to defend the freedom of the colonists, 
and calling themselves Sons of Liberty, were 
formed in New York, Boston, and elsewhere. 
All were determined that the Stamp Act 
should not be enforced. 




THOMAS HUTCHINSON. 

At the time of this excitement about the 
Stamp Act there was in Boston a scholarly 
man named Thomas Hutchinson, who was 
vainly trying to keep the peace between King 
George the Third and His Majesty's rebellious 
subjects in Massachusetts. 

Hutchinson was not then the governor of 
Massachusetts — he was as yet only the lieu- 
tenant-governor; but his influence on people 
and events was greater than that of Governor 
Bernard himself. 

He was a Boston man, and interested in all 
public matters; yet, Boston man though he 
was, he was a Tory, that is, an adherent of the 
king. 

He said that Parliament had a perfect right 
to tax the Americans. He said that British 
subjects in America, living so far from the 

a6 




THOMAS HUTCHINSON. 



THOMAS HUTCHINSON. 29 

mother-country, could not expect to enjoy all 
the privileges claimed by British subjects at 
home. He thought the Stamp Act an unwise 
measure, and did what he could to prevent it 
from being passed ; but after the passage of 
the act he maintained that the colonists would 
have to submit to it, and, for his part, insisted 
on its being enforced. 

The patriots, on the other hand, made it 
their business to show that it would never be 
endured. The more able and far-seeing among 
them consulted and called a general congress, 
which was to meet at New York and to decide 
on some plan for action. The stanch me- 
chanics of Boston, most of whom were Sons of 
Liberty, paraded the town and made speeches 
in Liberty Hall, which was not a real hall, but 
the open space beneath the large elm known 
as Liberty Tree, on the corner of Essex and 
Orange streets. 

On a morning in August the branches of 
Liberty Tree were seen to be bearing strange 
fruit. A stuffed figure dressed to look like 



30 THOMAS HUTCHINSON. 

Andrew Oliver, and a great boot, which was 
plainly meant to ridicule Lord Bute, dangled 
in the air. 

Hutchinson ordered the sheriff to take them 
down. The people about the tree forbade the 
sheriff to do anything of the kind. 

All day the figures hung there, hooted and 
laughed at by the crowd. At night-fall the 
Sons of Liberty cut them down. They placed 
them upon a hand-bier and carried them in 
a procession through the streets. Through 
Orange, Marlboro, and Newbury streets, the 
procession marched, halting finally under the 
arches of the Town House. 

" Liberty, property, and no stamps ! " shouted 
the people. 

The council, who with Bernard, Hutchinson, 
and others, were within, thought that the 
crowd meant to rush into the building. The 
Sons of Liberty, however, had no such inten- 
tion. They rested a moment, gave three rous- 
ing cheers, and passed on. 

Down Kilby Street (Merchant's Lane) they 



THOMAS HUTCHINSON. T,T, 

moved, to Oliver's Dock. Near by was a half- 
finished building which some said was to be the 
stamp-office. This they pulled to the ground; 
then, shouldering its beams, they carried them 
to Oliver's house on Fort Hill, made a bonfire 
of them, and burned the effigies before Oliver's 
eyes. 

The Sons of Liberty intended no violence ; 
but some unruly men, following in their wake, 
trampled Oliver's garden, and, breaking into 
his house, destroyed part of his furniture. 

Moreover, a fortnight later, the mob spirit 
broke out among the worst elements of the 
town. A drunken rabble, collecting in King- 
Street, plundered the wine-cellars of the regis- 
trar of the admiralty, opposite the Court House, 
and of the comptroller of the customs, on Han- 
over Street, and then rushed to Hutchinson's 
house, in Garden Court, to work further mis- 
chief there. 

It was a fine old house, filled with pictures 
and books, and containing a store of valuable 
papers, letters, and manuscripts ; for Hutchin- 



34 THOMAS HUTCHINSON. 

son had undertaken, as had WilHam Bradford 
and John Winthrop before him, to write a his- 
tory of the Massachusetts colony. The second 
vokuTie of this history was still unprinted. It 
lay in loose sheets in Hutchinson's desk. 

Hutchinson, on discovering that the rioters 
were coming, sent his family out of the house, 
but remained himself to guard his possessions. 
His eldest daughter, however, had fled but a 
few steps, when she was overpowered by the 
thought of her father facing the mob alone. 
She could not bear it, and, turning back, de- 
clared that she would not leave the house 
unless he went with her. 

The mob were close at hand ; for her sake 
he yielded. They hastened away, and in a few 
moments the crowd burst into the building. 

" The doors were immediately split to pieces 
with broadaxes," says Hutchinson, "and away 
made there and at the windows for the entry 
of the mob, which poured in, and filled, in an 
instant, every room in the house. . . . They 
continued their possession until daylight, car- 



THOMAS HUTCHINSON. 



35 



ried away or cast into the street everything 
that was in the house," — the manuscript his- 
tory was given to the winds, and would have 
been utterly lost had not some friends rescued 
it, bit by bit, and given it back to him, — "de- 
molished every part of it, as far as lay in their 
power, and had begun to break away the brick 
work. . . . People came in from many parts of 
the country to view the ruins . . . and from the 
shocking appearance could not help express- 
ing a disapprobation of such acts of violence. 
Their prejudices, however, were not abated 
against the Stamp Act." 

Not one whit. The New York Cono^ress 
sent an address to the king and protests to 
Parliament ; the colonies united in opposition. 
• Quantities of stamped paper and parchment 
had been prepared in England. All that was 
sent over was so well taken care of by the 
patriots, that by November not a sheet of it 
could be obtained for use. 

On the ist of November, tolling bells and 
booming minute-guns announced the day. 



36 THOMAS HUTCHINSON. 

Flags floated mournfully at half-mast; men 
saluted each other with the watchword, " Lib- 
erty, property and no stamps ! " Efligies were 
again hung on Liberty Tree, and again carried 
in procession about the streets. There was no 
sign that the prejudice had abated. 

Oliver had, long before this, lost all desire 
to give out the hated stamps to such a popu- 
lace, but the people still feared that he might 
try to do so ; and he was required to face an 
assemblage of two thousand people, under 
Liberty Tree, and to read there a paper assur- 
ing them that he never did, and never would, 
act as stamp distributor. 

Then the people said that, as the distrib- 
utor had resigned, it was impossible for them 
to obey the Stamp Act, and they demanded" 
that business should be allowed to proceed as 
before. To this, however, Hutchinson would 
not agree, and for a time all was at a stand- 
still. Hutchinson says, " Five or six weeks 
passed without any business in the Custom 
House or the courts of law. No wills were 



THOMAS HUTCHINSON. '^'] 

proved, no administrations granted, nor any 
business of any kind transacted where stamped 
papers were requisite." 

But such a state of affairs could not con- 
tinue very long. Gradually business was re- 
sumed. In January the council promised that 
the courts should be re-opened ; and at last Par- 
liament, finding that the resistance in America 
was so great, repealed the Stamp Act, to the 
great rejoicing of the colonists and of many 
people in England as well. 

Boston celebrated the repeal with bells, 
cannon, illuminations, and fireworks. Liberty 
Tree, which now bore a copper plate with 
"The Tree of Liberty, Aug. 14, 1765," stamped 
upon it in " golden letters," was gay with lan- 
terns ; a pyramid of two hundred and eighty 
lamps glowed on the Common ; the houses 
shone with lighted windows ; while streams of 
people passed to and fro, congratulating each 
other upon the happy ending of their trials. 

In their relief at being freed from the Stamp 
Act, few stopped to realize the full meaning of 



38 THOMAS HUTCHINSON. 

a sentence which accompanied the repeal, — a 
sentence which declared that Parliament had 
power to bind America " in all cases whatso- 
ever." 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



The Father of the Revolution. 

A WELL-BUILT house, comfortable still, though 
falling into decay, stood, in 1765, on Purchase 
Street, overlooking the water. Each night, 
long after other houses were dark, a light 
shone from this ; for within, in his study, sat 
Samuel Adams, plying an untiring pen. 

This pen furnished many an article for the 
newspapers of the day. It had said, " It is 
safe for every man to adhere to the law," and 
it insisted that the laws of England, rightly 
understood, justified the colonists. 

When Parliament declared that it had power 
to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever, 
and shortly after proceeded to levy taxes on 
glass, paper, painters' colors, and tea, this never- 

39 



40 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

resting pen found yet more work to do. It 
wrote letters to be sent to London, explaining 
what the colonists thought about taxation ; it 
wrote a circular letter to be sent from one 
colony to another, saying that the colonists 
must stand by each other, and refuse to let 
Parliament lay their taxes. It wrote a famous 
petition to the king. 

Now for a plain man, in a shabby house, in 
an American colony, to be writing a petition 
to the king of England, might well seem a 
wonderful thing to many people. It seemed 
wonderful enough to Samuel Adams's daugh- 
ter Hannah. 

" Only think of it ! " she exclaimed, when she 
saw her father preparing the petition, " that 
paper will soon be touched by the royal hand ! " 

" My dear," Samuel Adams answered, " it 
wall, more likely, be spurned by the royal 
foot ! " 

He was quite right. The king paid little 
heed to the remonstrances of his American 
subjects. But the Americans did not intend 




SAMUEL ADAMS. 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 43 

to pay the taxes, notwithstanding. By the ad- 
vice of Samuel Adams and others, the patriots 
throughout the country agreed to " eat nothing, 
drink nothing, wear nothing " that came from 
Great Britain. 

The wives and daughters of the Boston men 
would not buy or drink any tea. They gave 
up wearing mourning for the death of friends, 
because they would not use the fine black 
cloths, all of which were then brought over 
from England. Every one dressed in the cloths 
that were manufactured here. Homespun be- 
came the fashionable wear. 

Spinning-wheels were set up in the drawing- 
rooms, where young girls were expected to 
know how to use them, and spinning-matches 
were held on the Common, to encourage all 
classes in the industry. 

The non-importation agreement, and the 
resolute spirit of the Boston men, alarmed the 
king's officials. They asked for troops, for 
protection. English soldiers were sent, there- 
fore, to rebellious Boston, to try to keep it in 
order. 



44 THE BOSTON MASSACRE. 

II. 

The Boston Massacre. 

The soldiers arrived on the ist of October, 
1768. Two regiments and part of a third 
landed at Long Wharf and marched through 
the streets with flying colors, to the beat of the 
drum. Soon the Common was white with their 
tents, the Town House, in which a number of 
them slept, noisy with their voices. British 
cannon were planted in King Street ; the red- 
coats were everywhere to be seen. 

The townsfolk were bitterly opposed to the 
coming of the troops, but they resolved to keep 
the peace. They meant to prove that Boston 
was not a turbulent, troublesome hotbed of 
discontent, but the home of men who could 
defend their rights soberly and without vio- 
lence. 

For a year and a half the scarlet uniforms 
and the coats of homespun jostled each other 
in the streets, and irritation grew on both sides. 



THE BOSTON MASSACRE. 45 

The people, and the soldiers, too, however, 
controlled themselves wonderfully well ; but 
ill-will was rife, and air last the bad feeling 
broke out in what has been called the Boston 
Massacre. 

On Friday, the 2d of March, in the year 
1770, some Boston rope-makers had a quarrel 
and a short fight with several of the soldiers. 
Both sides let their friends know that on Mon- 
day, March 5th, the quarrel would be renewed. 

When Monday evening came, parties of men 
and boys and bands of soldiers were to be 
seen passing hither and thither through the 
streets. 

One squad of soldiers, on their way from the 
main-guard on King Street to the Brattle 
Street barracks, was met by a crowd of men 
armed with sticks and canes. High words 
passed. Blows followed. The soldiers raised 
their guns as if to fire, but an officer who 
chanced to pass at that moment ordered the 
soldiers away. 

The mischief was done, however, for some 



46 THE BOSTON MASSACRE. 

one had already hurried to the alarm-bell, and 
soon its strokes pealed out upon the air, while 
cries of " To arms, to arms ! the soldiers are 
rising!" "Town-born, turn out! town-born, 
turn out ! " aroused the people. 

Pouring from their doors they rushed to 
King Street. 

" To the main-guard ! to the main-guard I 
there's the nest ! " shouted some ; while others, 
more prudent, tried to quiet the excited throng. 

In King Street, in front of the Custom 
House, stood a sentinel. 

" There's the soldier who knocked me down! " 
called out a boy. 

" Kill him ! knock him down ! " roared a 
chorus of voices. 

The sentinel ran up the steps and loaded his 
gun. 

" The lobster is going to fire ! " exclaimed 
another boy. 

" If you fire, you must die for it ! " said 
Henry Knox to the sentinel. 

' If they touch me, I'll fire," answered he. 



THE BOSTON MASSACRE. 



47 



Snowballs came pelting about him. 
" Keep off ! " he cried ; and, pointing his gun 
at the crowd, called loudly for help. 




THE BOSTON MASSACRE. 



Captain Preston and eight other soldiers 
came from the main-guard to his aid. They 
stood there, ten armed men, facing the fifty or 



48 THE BOSTON MASSACRE. 

sixty citizens who by this time had gathered in 
front of the Custom House. 

" Take your men back again," urged Knox, 
seizing Preston's arm. " If they fire, your Hfe 
must answer for the consequences." 

" I know what I'm about," said the captain, 
and turned to his men, who were pressing upon 
the people with their bayonets. 

" Fire if you dare, you lobster-backs ! " called 
the crowd. " Why don't you fire ? " and sticks, 
stones, and clubs were hurled at the file. 

Then a gun went off, — another, and another 
— seven shots. 

The people fell back. Crispus Attucks, a 
powerful man, half-negro, half-Indian, who had 
been a leader of the mob, lay dead upon the 
ground. Samuel Gray and James Caldwell, on- 
lookers merely, were killed too. Eight others 
were badly wounded. 

The drums of the soldiery and the drums of 
the town, alike, now beat to arms. Several 
companies of the 29th regiment marched rap- 
idly to the spot, and knelt, with levelled guns, 
in position for street firing. 



THE BOSTON MASSACRE. 49 

The frightened populace, arriving upon the 
scene, saw, by the moonhght, the kneeling 
troops, the blood-stained snow, and their dead 
or dying comrades now being carried away by 
friends. 

Presently they caught sight of Hutchinson, 
just appearing. " To the Town House ! " they 
cried, as he stopped to reprimand Captain 
Preston. 

Into the Town House Hutchinson went. 
Stepping out upon the balcony, he addressed 
the crowxl below. A full inquiry, he assured 
them, should be made, and justice should be 
done ; he begged them to return to their 
homes. 

But the people refused to move while the 
soldiers remained. 

Hutchinson appealed then to the officers, 
asking them to withdraw the troops. They 
gave the command, and the soldiers rose, shoul- 
dered arms, and withdrew to their barracks. 

Satisfied with this, the citizens also moved 
slowly away. 



50 SAM ADAMS S REGIMENTS. 

III. 

Sam Adams's Regiments. 

On the very next day an immense meeting 
was held in the Old South Church, and Samuel 
Adams, at the head of a committee, was sent to 
Hutchinson to demand that the troops should 
be removed from the town. 

Hutchinson replied that he could not order 
the troops away ; only General Gage, who was 
in New York, could do that. He was their 
commander ; the order must come from him. 

Adams, however, insisted. Colonel Dal- 
rymple, sitting near Hutchinson in the council 
chamber, remarked in a low voice that he could 
take one regiment to the Castle. Hutchinson 
consented to this. He said he would send away 
one regiment, and Samuel Adams left the 
Town House to carry that answer to the peo- 
ple assembled in the Old South Church. 

But Adams was determined that the answer 
should not satisfy the people. He knew that 



SAM ADAMS S REGIMENTS. 53 

both regiments must be removed ; and as he 
passed through the crowded streets and up the 
aisle of the church, he said significantly, bow- 
ing as he did so to the right and to the left, 
" Both regiments, or none ! Both, or none ! " 

His hint was understood. When he an- 
nounced from the pulpit that Hutchinson had 
promised that one regiment should be sent 
away, and then asked if Hutchinson's answer 
was satisfactory, the people shouted with a will, 
" No ! " and " Both regiments ! " 

Back again to Hutchinson he went, to say 
that the meeting was not appeased; that both 
reofiments must 2:0. 

Hutchinson, with twenty-four councillors and 
several British officers, still sat at the great 
council-table. The scarlet waistcoats, powdered 
wigs, and gold-laced hats made the room bril- 
liant with color. When Samuel Adams, in his 
suit of homespun, stood before them, it may 
well have seemed that English magnificence 
must overawe American simplicity. 

Adams repeated his request. Hutchinson 



54 SAM ADAMS S REGIMENTS. 

was firm. One regiment only, he said, — 
Colonel Dalrymple's, — could be sent to the 
Castle. 

But toward the imposing circle Adams 
stretched a commanding arm. Pointing at 
Hutchinson, he said : " If you, or Colonel Dal- 
rymple under you, have the power to remove 
one regiment, you have the power to remove 
both. It is at your peril if you refuse. The 
meeting is composed of three thousand people. 
They are become impatient. Night is approach- 
ing. An immediate answer is expected. Both 
regiments or none ! " Hutchinson grew pale 
with anger. He saw, at last, that he must 
yield. Actually trembling with rage and cha- 
grin, he promised that the troops should go. 
On the following morning the removal was 
begun ; both regiments were sent to the Castle. 
Ever since, because Adams's wishes, and not 
the lieutenant-governor's nor the general's nor 
the king's, were obeyed, those troops have been 
spoken of as " Sam Adams's Regiments." 



THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY. 

December i6, 1773. • 

As a concession to the colonies, Parliament 
in 1770 took off the taxes on paper, glass, and 
painters' colors. It did not, however, take off 
the tax on tea. 

The Americans knew that while a single tax 
remained they must continue their resistance. 
Merchants, therefore, still refused to import the 
tea; patriots, with their wives and daughters, 
still refused to drink it. 

In Boston a kind of sham tea Vv^as made of 
raspberry -leaves ; Connecticut housekeepers 
preferred thyme for their teapots ; while with 
others a shrub, even now called New Jersey 
tea, was the favorite. 

As the colonists would not buy the real tea, 
great quantities of it lay unsold in the English 
ports. Its owners, of course, wished very much 
to get rid of it. They hoped that if the price 

55 



56 THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY. 

were reduced, the Americans might be induced 
to purchase the tea ; so the price was low^ered 
by three-pence a pound, and ships loaded with 
tea-chests were despatched across the Atlantic. 

The price, however, was not at all what the 
Americans objected to. They objected to the 
tax itself. And as that had not been removed, 
they were unshaken in their resolve that the 
tea should not be bought. 

Wishing to act in concert, they formed com- 
mittees of correspondence ; and letters posted 
back and forth carrying news and encouraging 
all to keep to their agreement. 

Lord North, one of the leaders of the min- 
istry, was warned that if England forced the 
tea upon the colonies, serious trouble w^ould 
ensue. 

" The king will have it so," he answered. 
" The king means to try the question with 
America." 

If the king meant to try the question with 
America, America was ready to have it tried. 
The Boston committee of corres]3ondence as- 



THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY. 57 

sured the other committees that Massachusetts 
would not allow the tea to land, and the 
answers which came from them showed that all 
were of one mind. 

" The people would rather buy so much 
poison," wrote a New York man ; and the 
Philadelphians would have said the same. 

In November, 1773, the Dartmouth, loaded 
with tea, arrived in Boston, and was moored at 
Grifhn's Wharf. Not long afterward two other 
ships came up the bay,, and were anchored 
near her. The tea, however, remained in their 
holds, for a guard of twenty-five men watched 
night and day to prevent the removal of a 
single chest. 

The Boston men declared that the ships 
must bear their cargoes straight back to Eng- 
land. The owners and the captains replied 
that the vessels could not do that without a 
permit from the governor or from the Custom 
House, and permits were refused. 

Yet if the tea was not taken from the ves- 
sels or carried away again before the 1 7th of 



58 THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY. 

December, the government would have the 
right to seize the cargoes and do as it hked 
with the tea, — perhaps put it into the hands of 
tea-merchants who were on the king's side and 
who had plenty of Tory customers. 

The 1 6th came. A great meeting filled the 
Old South Church to overflowing. Francis 
Rotch, the owner of the Dartmouth, appeared 
before the meeting and said that he had not 
succeeded in getting the papers which would 
enable his ship to sail. He was bidden to go 
again to Hutchinson, who was now the gover- 
nor, and to ask for the last time for permission 
to send back the tea. 

Hutchinson was at his country-seat in Mil- 
ton ; but Mr. Rotch hastened out to find him, 
while the people in the Old South patiently 
awaited the reply. 

As the hours dragged on, the time was en- 
livened by speeches. " Who knows," said John 
Rowe, "how tea will mingle with salt water.?" 
This hint was hailed with applause. 

December days are short. By five o'clock 




THE OLD SOUTH. 



THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY. 6 1 

it was quite dark. The Old South was but 
dimly lighted by a few candles. Still the 
people lingered. Finally, at six o'clock, Mr. 
Rotch returned. 

Making his way to the pulpit, he announced 
that his errand had been a failure. Hutchinson 
had again refused to furnish him with a pass. 

As Rotch finished speaking, Samuel Adams 
arose. In a loud, clear voice he said, " This 
meeting can do nothing more to save the 
country." 

" Boston harbor a teapot to-night ! Hurrah 
for Griffin's Wharf ! " called a voice in the 
gallery. 

At the same moment a shout sounded out- 
side, and, no one knew whence, but seeming to 
spring up at every corner, bands of queerly 
dressed men, many of them disguised as In- 
dians, rushed down to the wharf. 

One of the company, Joshua Wyeth, says : 
" We placed a sentry at the head of the wharf, 
another in the middle, and one on the bow of 
each ship as we took possession. We boarded 



62 THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY. 

the ship moored to the wharf, and our leader . . . 
ordered the captain and the crew to open the 
hatchways and hand us the hoisting-tackle and 
ropes, assuring them that no harm was intended 
them. The captain asked what we intended to 
do. Our leader told him that we were going to 
unload the tea, and ordered him and the crew 
below. They instantly obeyed. Some of our 
number then jumped into the hold and passed 
the chests to the tackle. As they were hauled 
on deck, others knocked them open with axes, 
and others raised them to the railing and dis- 
charged their contents overboard. . . . We were 
merry, in an undertone, at the idea of making 
so large a cup of tea for the fishes, but were as 
still as the nature of the case would admit. . . ." 
And another gives this account : — 
"The captain of the brig begged that they 
would not begin with his vessel, as the tea 
was covered with goods belonging to different 
merchants of the town. 

" They told him the tea they wanted, and 
the tea they would have ; but if he would go 



THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY. 65 

into his cabin quietly, not one article of his 
goods should be hurt. They immediately pro- 
ceeded to remove the goods and thus to dis- 
pose of the tea." 

The men were " clothed in blankets, with 
their heads muffled and copper-colored counte- 
nances, being each armed with a hatchet or 
axe. . . . Not the least insult was offered to any 
person save one Captain O'Connor, . . . who 
had ripped up the lining of his coat and waist- 
coat under the arms, and . . . had nearly filled 
them with tea, but being detected was handled 
pretty roughly. They not only stripped him of 
his clothes, but gave him a coat of mud, with 
a severe bruising into the bargain ; and noth- 
ing but their utter aversion to any disturbance 
prevented his being tarred and feathered." 

When all was over, the men, who had been 
wading ankle deep in tea, were called together, 
ordered to empty their shoes of the tea that 
had lodged in them, told to "shoulder arms," 
and then marshalled in strict order to the head 
of the wharf, whence they went back to their 



66 THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY. 

homes. In the space of two or three hours 
they had broken open three hundred and forty- 
two chests of tea. 

Nothing but the tea had been harmed. So 
careful were they to respect all other property 
that a padlock, broken by accident, was re- 
placed by a new one. 

In the early morning the rising tide, as if to 
play the part of Tory, floated the mass of tea- 
leaves toward the shore again ; but the Boston 
men would not suffer even this landing to be 
made. On discovering that the incoming 
water, from Fort Hill to Dorchester, was 
coated with the tea, they put out in boats 
and stirred with a will until it sank and dis- 
appeared. 



GENERAL CxAGE. 



The Port Bill and the Regulation Acts. 

When the news of the destruction of the tea 
reached England, the king resolved to punish 
Boston. The town was immediately placed 
under military rule. Hutchinson sailed for 
London. General Gage came from New York 
to take charge of Boston affairs. 

Gage came with orders to close the port of 
Boston. After the ist of June, 1774, not an 
American craft w^as to show itself in Boston 
Harbor. Even English vessels, with merchan- 
dise or supplies, were to avoid Boston, and to 
put in at Salem or Marblehead. 

This threatened ruin to the Boston mer- 
chants. In June the wharves lay idle, the 
warehouses were empty, men who had made 

their living by buying and selling what was 

67 



68 GENERAL GAGE. 

brought to them in ships found their business 
at an end. 

Besides this, provisions grew scarce. The 
boats which had formerly come with supphes 
from the other colonies or with produce from 
the neighboring country came no more. No 
one might fetch hay or wood from the islands, 
or pumpkins or potatoes from the farms. 
Such things must take a roundabout land 
journey and get in over Roxbury Neck, if they 
arrived at all. 

The closing of the port was not the only 
penalty Gage had come to inflict. He was to 
carry out the Regulation Acts. 

The Regulation Acts were certain com- 
mands of Parliament which quartered more 
troops upon the town, forbade the holding of 
town-meetings without the consent of the gov- 
ernor, and took away from the Massachusetts 
people the right to choose their own council- 
lors and to pay their own judges. 

But now the Massachusetts people, in some 
patriotic declarations called the Suffolk Re- 



GENERAL GAGE. 69 

solves, announced that a king who had broken 
faith with his people by permitting such injus- 
tice could not claim their support any longer. 
Henceforth, said the Resolves, the people would 
obey the Continental Congress, and a Provin- 
cial Congress should be formed. 

Gage, alarmed at this, began to seize the 
powder belonging to the Province. His sol- 
diers captured what was stored in the old mill 
not far from the hill on which Tufts College 
now stands ; and on the same day they carried 
off two field-pieces from Cambridge. They 
tried also to get the powder that was kept in 
Salem ; but in this they did not succeed. 

The farmers, on their side, prepared for war. 
Every town had its band of militia. Every 
village green became a training-ground. Men 
of all ages, — fathers and sons, — answered the 
beat of the drum, assembled in companies, 
marched and countermarched, and presented 
and shouldered arms, under the teaching of 
some veteran who had learned his lesson in 
fighting against the French. Alarm com- 



JO GAGE S SCOUTS. 

panics, called minute-men, held themselves 
ready to spring to arms at any hour of the day 
or night ; they were especially warned to be 
ready at a minute's notice to defend the arms, 
ammunition, and food collected by the patriots 
for the use of the American army. 



II. 

Gage's Scouts in Worcester and Concord. 

1774-1775- 

By the middle of the winter a good supply 
of rice, flour, and other stores for a Provincial 
army had been gathered and forwarded for 
safe-keeping to Worcester and Concord. 

Gage had forbidden the buying of these 
stores. He determined to destroy them. 

First, he must find out where they were 
placed, and by what roads a body of soldiers 
could best reach them. So he sent two young 
officers on a trip of discovery. 

As the officers, Captain Brown and Ensign 



72 GAGE S SCOUTS. 

De Berniere, did not wish to be known for 
Englishmen, they dressed themselves as farm- 
ers, in " brown clothes," and with reddish hand- 
kerchiefs about their necks. Thus disguised, 
they set off, in the latter part of February, for 
Worcester. They crossed the river to Charles- 
town, and walked on through Cambridge to 
Watertovvn. 

In Watertown was a tavern, which they en- 
tered, intending to rest there for the night. 
Having ordered dinner in a private room, they 
sat contentedly enough over their comfortable 
meal, until they noticed that the negro woman 
who served them eyed them very sharply. 

" This is a fine country," one of them said to 
her, suavely. 

" So it is," she replied on the instant ; " and 
we have brave fellows to defend it ; and if you 
go up any higher, you will find it so." 

The retort took them aback. If they were 
suspected, they could not remain. Making an 
end of their meal, they hurried away. 

Captain Brown's servant, John, who accom- 



GAGE S SCOUTS. 73 

panied them and who had had his own expe- 
riences in the kitchen, now confided to them 
that the woman had told him that she knew 
them to be British officers, and that they would 
meet with rough usage if they ventured far into 
the country. 

De Berniere frankly owns that when they 
heard this they thought of turning back, but 
that on second thoughts, reminding each other 
that if they did they would " appear very fool- 
ish," they decided to push on. 

The next tavern they tried was six miles fur- 
ther along, in Weston. Its sign told them that 
it was called " The Golden Ball." 

The landlord of " The Golden Ball " proved 
most obliging. When they asked for coffee 
and a fire, he answered meaningly, " You can 
have whichever you like, — coffee, or tea ! " 

Now no patriot would have offered tea. The 
man was plainly a Tory. 

This made them feel quite safe under his 
roof. They slept there until morning, when 
he sped them upon their journey, advising 



74 GAGES SCO-UTS. 

them to look for Jones's tavern on arriving in 
Worcester. 

They had left Boston on Thursday. On 
Saturday they walked into Worcester ; and 
finding the right tavern, and Mr. Jones, they 
were pleased to find that here again they might 
have " tea, or anything else they chose." 

" The next day being Sunday," writes De 
Berniere, " w^e could not think of travelling, as 
it was contrary to the custom of the country ; 
nor dare w^e stir out until the evening, because 
of meeting. . . . Nobody is allowed to walk the 
streets during divine service, without being 
taken up and examined ; so that, thinking we 
could not stand the examination so well, we 
thought it prudent to stay at home, where 
we w^rote and corrected our sketches. . . . 

" In the evening we went round the town 
and on all the hills that commanded it, sketch- 
ing everything we desired, and returned to the 
town w^ithout being seen." 

They had now learned almost enough about 
the country to be able to guide the troops from 



GAGE S SCOUTS. 75 

Boston to Worcester by way of Framingham, 
and this they fully expected to do before long. 
To be quite sure of the road, however, they 
needed to go over part of it again ; so, though 
they intended to explore the Marlborough road 
also, they decided that they must first go back 
as far as Buckminster's tavern in Framingham, 
and then strike across to Marlborough. 

At daybreak they arose, and after breakfast- 
ing and supplying themselves with food for the 
rest of the day, set out on the way by which 
they had come. A little beyond Shrewsbury, 
the road forked — the way to Marlborough ran 
to the left, the way to Framingham to the right. 
Just before they reached the parting of the 
ways a horseman overtook them. 

He rode slowly beside them, looking at 
them with close scrutiny, but without saying 
a word ; then, as if he had learned all he cared 
to know, he suddenly put his horse into a gal- 
lop and dashed off to Marlborough. 

The two young soldiers did not like this at 
all, and would have been still more disturbed 



76 gage's scouts. 

had they been told who he was ; for he was 
a messenger sent by the committee of corre- 
spondence to obtain news of them for the 
Marlborough folk. 

Their danger increased now with every hour. 
The wide-awake committee had eyes, ears, feet, 
and tongues at their command through every 
mile of the countryside. 

By six o'clock that evening the travellers 
came in sisfht of Buckminster's tavern, where 
they were to stop for the night. 

As they approached they heard shouts of 
command and the tramp of marching feet. 
To their dismay they saw that a company of 
rebel militia was being drilled before the 
house. 

To turn back unnoticed was impossible. 
They put a bold face upon the matter and 
entered the inn. 

The drill proceeded. An hour passed. Then 
the marching came nearer, nearer yet, until 
the company took position upon the green 
just outside of the room in which Brown and 
De Bcrniere were sitting. 



gage's scouts. "J"] 

There the drill was vigorously resumed. It 
ended at last, and the men stood in silence 
while one of their commanders made them a 
stirring speech, every word of which could be 
heard by the listeners within. 

He urcred his men to be cool, to be patient, 
to be brave ; he reminded them that they had 
already helped to win battles against the 
French, and spoke to them with enthusiasm 
of their favorite leaders, General Putnam and 
General Ward. When the company was dis- 
missed, many of them came into the house and 
remained until nine o'clock ; but the two offi- 
cers were not molested, though, doubtless, their 
errand was known. 

On the morrow they came once more to the 
tavern of their friendly tea-drinker, Jones, of 
Weston, and passed that night under his roof. 
They were not yet ready, however, to return to 
Boston. General Gage would expect a plan of 
the Marlborough route, and that they had not 
explored. 

The landlord said all he could against their 



73 gage's scouts. 

venturing again into that part of the country, 
but by this time they had grown confident and 
were not to be dissuaded. 

John was sent to Boston with their papers 
and sketches, but his masters made themselves 
ready for another long walk. Meanwhile, a 
snowstorm had come on. Hoping that it 
would abate, they did not set off until two 
o'clock in the afternoon, when they struck out 
toward the Marlboro uoh road. 

The snow was ankle deep, the sky darkened 
by heavy clouds. They plodded doggedly on 
and were about three miles from Marlborouo^h 
when suddenly they heard a muffled thud of 
hoofs coming along the snowy road. Turning, 
they saw a horseman, who reined up beside 
them, demanding, " Whence do you come ? " 

" From Weston." 

" Do you live there ? " 

" No." 

" Where do you live ? " 

" At Boston." 

" Where are you going ? " 



GAGE S SCOUTS. 79 

" To Marlborough, to see a friend." They 
were, indeed, going to the house of a Mr. 
Barnes, whom they knew to be a stanch Tory. 

" Are you in the army ? " 

This alarmed them, and they answered flatly, 
"No." 

He asked a few more questions, and then 
rode on to Marlborough. 

The Marlborough people, doubly forewarned 
of the approach of the strangers, came out of 
their houses, in all the storm, to see them 
go by. 

A baker accosted them. " Where are you 
going, masters ? " said he. 

"On to see Mr. Barnes," and on they went. 

Arriving at Mr. Barnes's door, they apolo- 
gized for making use of his house and name 
without so much as saying "by your leave," 
and confessed to him that they were oflicers in 
disguise. He interrupted them by saying, 
" You need not tell me ; you are already very 
well known to me, and so you are, I fear, to the 
people of the town." 



8o gage's scouts. 

" Recommend to us then, we beg of you," 
said the officers, unwilhng to endanger him, 
" some tavern where we may be safe." 

" You will be safe nowhere but in my house," 
was the response. "The town is very violent. 
You were expected at Colonel Williams's last 
night, and a party of liberty men went there to 
meet you." 

Then Brown and De Berniere remembered 
the horseman of the previous day. He had 
probably prepared the town for their reception. 

" What would they do with us if they got us 
into their hands ? " asked the officers. 

Mr. Barnes did not answer. The question 
was repeated. 

" You know very well what these people are," 
said Mr. Barnes, reluctantly. " You may expect 
the worst of treatment from them." 

Just then he was called from the room. 

Brown and De Berniere saw that the affair 
wore a very threatening face, but thought they 
might rest for two or three hours and get 
away by midnight. They were very hungry 



GAGE S SCOUTS. 8 I 

as well as tired ; a supper-table had been laid 
for them, and they seated themselves with 
alacrity. 

They had hardly begun to eat when Mr. 
Barnes came back, looking very much dis- 
turbed. " I must tell you plainly," said he, 
" that I am very uneasy about you. My ser- 
vants say that an attack will be made very 
soon. There Is no safety for you within the 
town." 

Hastily cramming some bread Into their 
pockets, the young men rose from the table. 

" Is there no road," they asked, " which will 
carry us around the outside of the town, so 
that we may not be seen ? " 

Barnes led the way to the rear of the house, 
and pointed out a by-road which ran about a 
quarter of a mile from the settled portion of the 
town. The fugitives set off at a rapid pace, 
and Mr. Barnes rejoined his family. 

He had hardly closed the back door when 
the front door resounded with heavy knock- 
ing. Opening It, he found himself face to face 



82 gage's scouts. 

with several grave men, members of the com- 
mittee of correspondence. They sternly bade 
him deliver the officers into their charge. Mr. 
Barnes said that his friends had gone. His 
word was not enough. The house was searched 
from cellar to attic. When convinced that 
those whom they sought were really not there, 
the members of the committee left, but turned 
to Mr. Barnes before going, with the remark 
that had they caught the officers in his house, 
it would have been pulled about his ears. 

At noon of the next day, when General Gage 
was inspecting the new fortifications on Bos- 
ton Neck, he saw two russet figures coming 
towards him through the snow. As they drew 
near, he saw that they were Brown and De 
Berniere, bringing him the information he 
desired. 

The two officers had done so well in their 
Worcester journey that General Gage entrusted 
them with the Concord affair. Read what De 
Berniere says of that : — 

" The twentieth of March Captain Brown 



gage's scouts. 83 

and myself received orders to set out for Con- 
cord. . . . We arrived there without any insult 
being offered us. . . . We were informed that 
they had fourteen pieces of cannon (ten iron 
and four brass), and two cohorns. . . . Their 
iron cannon they kept in a house in town ; 
their brass they had concealed in some place 
behind the town, in a wood. They had also a 
store of flour, fish, salt, and rice, and a maga- 
zine of powder and cartridges. . . . We dined 
at the house of Mr. Bliss, a friend to govern- 
ment. ... A woman directed us to Mr. Bliss's 
house ; a little while after she came in crying, 
and told us they swore, if she did not leave the 
town, they would tar and feather her for direct- 
ing Tories in their road." 



JOSEPH WARREN. 

1775- 

For a number of years after the Boston 
massacre the event was kept in mind, as the 
fifth of March came round, by meetings and 
speeches and patriotic declarations. 

The people were wont to come together in 
Faneuil Hall or in the Old South Church to 
listen to an oration and to express their detes- 
tation of having troops occupy their town. 

Joseph Warren was their favorite orator. 
He had already given one Fifth of March ora- 
tion, and now, in 1775, he was to deliver 
another. 

There was danger in the attempt. Every one 
expected a disturbance from the soldiers, and 
rumor said that there was a plot afoot to take 
Warren, Hancock, and Adams prisoners. Still, 
Warren was not to be dissuaded ; the danger 
only made him more eager. 
84 



JOSEPH WARREN. 85 

The 5th of March came, the hour for the 
oration approached, the church was filled, but 
Warren did not appear. His friends looked 
anxiously toward a group of British officers 
who had gathered about the entrance. It 
seemed impossible that Warren could make 
his way past them and through the crowd that 
thronged the aisles. 

Samuel Adams, sitting with John Hancock 
in the raised pulpit under the bell-shaped 
sounding-board, saw the scarlet coats about the 
door, and, with as much prudence as courtesy, 
ordered the best front pews to be cleared, 
and bade the officers come forward to the 
empty seats. Into the deacons' pews and the 
places reserved for the elders of the church 
filed the officers. Some of them, not finding 
room elsewhere, perched upon the pulpit stairs, 
their British uniforms making a startling con- 
trast to the folds of mourning draped there in 
memory of men who had been killed by British 
guns. 

Suddenly at the window behind the pulpit 



86 JOSEPH WARREN. 

rose the head and shoulders of a man. There 
was a loud shout of applause, and Warren, — 
for it was he, — leaped through the opening 
and took his stand behind the desk. 

He had foreseen that it would be difficult to 
enter by the door. He had thought, indeed, 
that some mischance might prevent his reach- 
ing the pulpit at all if he took the usual way. 
So he had driven to an apothecary's near by, 
had there put on his orator's robe, and, obtain- 
ing a ladder, had mounted to the window from 
the court below. 

Now, with officers of the British army all 
about him, as he stood in the old-fashioned 
high pulpit, he began a discourse on the evils 
of having soldiers quartered on the town in a 
time of peace. 

" Our streets," he said, " are again filled with 
armed men ; our harbor is crowded with ships 
of war. But these cannot intimidate us. Our 
liberty must be preserved. It is far dearer 
than life." And again, " An independence of 
Great Britain is not our aim. No ; our wish 




JOSEPH WARREN. 



JOSEPH WARREN. 89 

is that Britain and the colonies may, hke the 
oak and ivy, grow and increase in strength 
together; . . . but if the only way to safety 
lies through fields of blood, I know you will 
not turn your faces from your foes." ^ - 

While Warren was speaking, the officers in- 
dulged in coughs, exclamations, and groans. 
One of them, sitting directly under the pulpit, 
caught Warren's glance, and thrusting his hand 
into his pocket, brought out some bullets, which 
he held up significantly in his open palm. 

Warren, without a moment's hesitation, 
dropped his white cambric handkerchief upon 
the bullets, and went on smoothly with what 
he was saying. 

The handkerchief was, perhaps, a sign of 
truce. It was, at any rate, a token of fear- 
lessness, and he was allowed to speak to the 
end. 

When he had finished, a vote of thanks was 
called for. " Fie, fie ! " cried the officers, to 
show that they, at least, did not thank him 
at all. 



go JOSEPH WARREN. 

"Fire, fire!" echoed the panic-stricken 
crowd, mistaking the officers' words. 

For a few moments there was wild confusion ; 
but as soon as it was quieted by the assurance 
that there was no fire, all waited to pass the 
usual resolutions, and then dispersed in peace. 




MAP OF COUNTRY AROUND BOSTON (MASSACHUSETTS). 



THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. 

April 19, 1775. 

I. 

Paul Revere 's Ride. 

Every one knew that Gage meant to send 
troops out to Concord to seize the cannon and 
stores. Every one said that the soldiers meant 
to stop at Lexington to capture John Hancock 
and Samuel Adams, who had taken refuge 
there. 

A number of men, therefore, most of them 
mechanics, undertook to watch the doings of 
the British, and messengers were frequently 
sent from Boston to Lexington, bearing infor- 
mation of the mo ements of the enemy. One 
of the trustiest of these messengers was Paul 
Revere. 

By the middle of April it was noticed that 
the small boats belonging to the army were put 

91 



92 THE BATTLE OE LEXINGTON. 

in order, and left ready for use under the sterns 
of the men-of-war. On the evening of the i8th 
a body of soldiers was seen moving quietly 
across the Common toward the river. Word 
was instantly carried to Warren that the troops 
were on the march. 

Warren lost no time in sending for Paul 
Revere. He told him that he must get to 
Lexington before the troops, warn Hancock 
and Adams of their danger, and then hasten 
on to give the alarm in Concord. 

Revere had promised the Charlestown peo- 
ple that as soon as the soldiers moved he would 
flash a signal from the Old North Church. 
One lantern hung from the tower would mean 
that they had passed out over the Neck ; two, 
that they had taken to the boats and were 
crossing the river. Stopping only to ask a 
friend to hang out the lanterns, he hurried to 
his own little boat, which he kept at the north- 
ern end of the town, and while the British were 
embarking from the western shore and making 
for Cambridge, he was pulled by two stout 
rowers directly over to Charlestown. 




CHRIST CHURCH. 



THE BATTLE OE LEXINGTON. 95 

The moon was rising, and the Somei^set, a 
British man-of-war, swung slowly with the in- 
coming tide. Revere passed the ship unchal- 
lenged, and landing at Charlestown found that 
the people there had seen the signals and 
knew already what he had to tell them. 

As soon as a horse could be saddled, he 
mounted, and leaving the few late lights of 
the village behind him, sped along the lonely 
country road leading out over Charlestown 
Neck. ^ 

He had been told that parties of British 
officers were patrolling the roads between Bos- 
ton and Concord, to catch any messenger sent 
to spread the alarm ; and he soon proved the 
truth of the warning, for before he was well 
past the Neck he espied two horsemen hiding 
in the shadow^ of a tree. 

" One tried to get ahead of me," says Revere, 
" and the other to take me. I turned my horse 
very quick, and galloped towards Charlestown 
Neck, and then pushed for the Medford road. 
The one who chased me, endeavoring to cut 



96 THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. 

me off, got into a clay pond. ... 1 got clear 
of him, and went through Medford, over the 
bridge and up to Menotomy [Arhngton]. In 
Medford I awaked the captain of the minute- 
men, and after that I alarmed ahnost every 
house until I got to Lexington." 

Hancock and Adams were at the house of 
the Rev. Mr. Clark, on the old Bedford road, 
now Hancock Street. 

Up through the Lexington streets Revere 
clattered, and drew rein before the minister's 
door. A sergeant was on guard in front of 
the house; Hancock and Adams were asleep 
within. 

" Hush ! " said the sergeant to Revere. 
" Don't make so much noise ; you will awaken 
the family." 

" Noise ! " shouted Revere. " You'll have 
noise enough before morning; the Regulars 
are coming ! " 

" Is that you. Revere ? " said Hancock, thrust- 
ing his head out of the window. '' Come in. 
We know you ! " 



THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. 97 

Revere went in. When he had deHvered his 
message, John Hancock fell to cleaning his 
gun, declaring that he would take part with the 
militia. Samuel Adams, however, always wise 
and far-seeing, laid a restraining hand upon 
Hancock's arm. 

" That is not for us," he said ; " we belong to 
the cabinet." 

Hancock's aunt, and Dorothy Quincy, whom 
Hancock was to marry, were in the house. 
They added their entreaties, and it was decided 
that the two patriots should leave Lexington 
and go to a place of greater safety in Woburn. 

Another messenger arrived while Revere was 
resting at Mr. Clark's. Warren, knowing the 
risks that Revere ran, had sent William Dawes 
out over the Neck, hoping that if one failed, 
the other might succeed. 

Revere and Dawes refreshed themselves with 
food, and sprang into their saddles again, to 
carry the alarm to Concord. 

A young physician, a Concord man, whom 
they overtook, joined them, and all were intent 



98 THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. 

on awakening the inmates of the houses by the 
way, when Revere discovered four more British 
officers lying in wait for them. 

Spurring out from the trees by the roadside, 
these officers forced Revere and his compan- 
ions into a pasture. Here there was a hot 
chase. The doctor succeeded in jumping his 
horse over a low stone wall, and got to Con- 
cord ; but Revere, seeing a piece of woods at 
a distance, unluckily made for that. He had 
nearly reached it, and thought himself safe, 
when out started six other officers, who sur- 
rounded him. 

" Where do you come from ? " demanded 
one. 

" From Boston," answered Revere. 

" What is your name } " 

" Paul Revere." 

" Are you an express [a special messen- 
ger] } " 

" I am." 

'' What time did you leave Boston ? " 

" I told him," says Revere, " and added, that 



THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. 99 

. . . there would be five hundred Americans 
there in a short time, for I had alarmed the 
country all the w^^y up." 

The two parties of officers then united. 
Revere was bidden mount his horse again, and 
all together they moved toward Lexington, 
Revere being assured that he should be shot 
at the first attempt to break away. 

Thus they rode until they neared the Lex- 
ington meeting-house, when the sound of a 
volley of guns startled them. 

In front of the meeting-house, on the Com- 
mon, were Captain Parker and his men. They 
had assembled at the first alarm, and were 
determined to show the English soldiers that 
American farmers, if need be, could fight for 
the welfare of their homes. But the soldiers 
were still far away. Captain Parker advised 
his men to separate and rest, — to sleep, if they 
could, — until called together again. They 
fired a volley and parted. 

It was this volley which had startled the offi- 
cers who were approaching with Revere. They 



lOO THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. 

anxiously asked if there were no other road to 
Boston. They must rejoin the army, they said, 
with all possible speed. 

But the sergeant's horse was tired, and un- 
equal to the journey. 

" Take that man's horse," commanded the 
major briefly, pointing to the one Revere rode. 

In a twinkling* Revere was off, the sergeant 
on; and the good horse that had carried the 
alarm so swiftly and safely throughout the night 
dashed off with the rest of the king's steeds, 
turned Tory against his will. 

Revere was left standing alone. Taking 
a short cut across the burying-ground and 
meadows, he went back to Mr. Clark's house, 
to assist in getting Hancock and Adams to a 
place of safety. 



THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. lOI 

11. 
The March of the British. 

While Paul Revere was rowing over to 
Charlestown, the British entered their boats 
at the foot of the Common and embarked for 
Cambridge. 

By the time that he was spurring over 
Charlestown Neck, they must have been just 
leaving the marshes near Phips's Farm, on 
Lechmere's Point, their landing-place. 

They marched on in silence, — Gage's grena- 
diers and light infantry, eight or nine hundred 
in all, — flattering themselves that their move- 
ment was unknown. 

Suddenly the stillness was broken by the 
pealing of bells and the firing of guns. Their 
secret was out. The countryside had received 
the alarm. 

The British commander, Colonel Smith, sent 
back to Boston for re-enforcements, and bade 



I02 



THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON, 



one of his officers, Major Pitcairn, push rapidly 
on, with a small body of men, to Lexington. 



X> 



' Tavern 




iM£:^_ 



RuMttt i Stt^th»r» N. r. 



ROADS TO LEXINGTON, 

As Pitcairn advanced, he met several mes- 
sengers riding down the road from Lexington 



THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON, IO3 

to gather news of the troops. These messen- 
gers he captured, one after another, until one, 
Thaddeus Bowman, eluded the soldiers, and 
galloped back to Lexington with the news that 
the Reeulars were close at hand. 



III. 

The Skirmish at Lexington. 

On receiving the alarm Captain Parker sum- 
moned his men by the beat of the drum and 
drew them up again upon the Common. He 
was resolved not to " meddle or make with the 
Regulars " unless they molested him ; but if 
they did molest him, he knew what he should 
do. As he waited in the gray morning light, 
he ordered his men to load their pieces with 
powder and ball, and said to them, " Don't fire 
unless fired upon ; but if they mean to have a 
war, let it begin here ! " 

It was to begin there. Major Pitcairn, first 
allowing Colonel Smith to overtake him, 



I04 



THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON, 



marched directly upon the little band of sev- 
enty, who, with about as many more of their 
townsmen, stood resolutely facing him. "Ye 
villains, ye rebels, disperse ! " cried Pitcairn, 
loudly. " Lay down your arms ! Why don't 
you lay down your arms, and disperse ? " 




LEXINGTON COMMON AND MEETING-HOUSE 



A gun was fired, — probably a British gun. 
More shots followed. The Americans returned 
the fire ; but when the British were seen to 
be moving around both sides of the meeting- 



THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. I05 

house, as if to surround the Provincials, Cap- 
tain Parker himself called, " Disperse ! and 
take care of yourselves ! " and slowly, still fir- 
ing, his men retired. 

Eight of their number lay dead upon the 
ground ; ten more were wounded. Major Pit- 
cairn's horse was shot under him, and two of 
his soldiers had received slight wounds. 

The British, as the last of the militia van- 
ished, formed on the Common, fired a volley, 
gave three cheers in sign of victory, and 
marched on for Concord. 



IV. 

The Concord Fight. 

It was about seven o'clock when the soldiers 
came over the hill at the entrance of the town 
of Concord. The spring was early. On this 
April morning fruit-trees were in bloom, and 
fields were green with inch-high grain. 

The Concord men had worked all night at 



io6 



THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. 



removino: or concealino; the stores. Much of 
the food had been carried to other towns ; 
several of the cannon had been dragged away, 
or hidden in the woods. 




THE NORTH BRIDGE. 



The British, however, found about sixty bar- 
rels of fiour, which they split open ; some 
wooden spoons and trenchers, which they 
burned ; three cannon, the trunnions of which 
they knocked off; and about five hundred 



THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. I07 

pounds of balls, which they threw into the 
mill-pond and the wells. Besides this, they 
cut down the liberty-pole, and set the Court 
House on fire. The flames of the latter, how- 
ever, w^ere soon quenched. 

A party of two hundred soldiers, guided by 
De Berniere, set off for Colonel Barrett's house, 
where more stores were thought to be kept'. 
Colonel Barrett's house was on the other side 
of the Concord River, across what was known 
as the North Bridge. Half of the party halted 
at the bridge, and remained to guard it while 
the rest went oil to search the house. The 
search did not prosper. Some casks of mus- 
ket-balls, cartridges, and flints were in the 
attic ; but the colonel's wife had covered them 
with a huge heap of feathers, and they were 
not discovered. While the soldiers were burn- 
ing the wheels of some gun-carriages in the 
yard, they heard the sound of firing, and hur- 
ried back to the bridge. 

The guard at the bridge had been seen by 
the Provincial militia, assembled on a neigh- 



I08 THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. 

boring hill. After holding a short council the 
militia had decided to dislodge the guard. 

" I haven't a man that is afraid to go," said 
Captain Isaac Davis, and down the hill with 
Colonel Robinson and Major Buttrick he 
marched to make the attack. 

When the soldiers of the guard saw the 
militia coming, they took their stand on the 
side of the river nearest the town, and began 
to pull up the planks of the bridge. 

Major Buttrick, quickening his pace, called 
to them to stop. They did not stop until the 
Americans were quite near them. Then they 
stopped to fire. 

With the discharge of the guns Captain 
Davis fell. Another of the Americans was 
killed ; several were wounded. 

" Fire, fellow-soldiers, fire ! " shouted Major 
Buttrick. 

They fired, killing two of the British, and 
wounding others. The guard, outnumbered, 
retired ; and their friends, coming back from 
Colonel Barrett's, found the bridge deserted, 



THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. I I I 

their comrades gone to rejoin Colonel Smith 
in the centre of the town, and the Provincials 
withdrawn again to their hill-top. The second 
detachment crossed the disputed planks un- 
pursued, and marched back to the main body 
in safety. 

V. 

The Retreat of the British. 

It was twelve o'clock before the English 
troops set off upon their return to Boston. 
By that time the roadsides were lined with 
minute-men and militia from all the neio:hbor- 
ing towns. Crouching behind stone walls or 
dodging from tree to tree, the Americans fired 
incessantly upon the British, whose flankers 
tried in vain to protect the main body. 

At every turn of the road fresh companies 
came to swell the numbers of the Provincials. 
The fire grew hotter and hotter, while the 
fatigue of the Regulars increased with every 
mile. 



112 THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. 

At Lexington the troops, despairing and 
panic-stricken, broke into a disorderly run. 
The officers were obhged to throw themselves 
in front of the scattered ranks and to threaten 
death to any man who tried to pass. Order 
was, in this way, partially restored ; and the 
march had begun again, when, to the great 
relief of officers and men, re-enforcements under 
Lord Percy appeared. 

The troops could not have held out much 
longer. Percy was just in time to prevent 
a complete surrender. His brigade formed a 
hollow square around the exhausted regiments ; 
his field-pieces held the Provincials in check. 
Smith's tired men flung themselves on the 
ground, their tongues hanging out of their 
mouths, like the tongues of panting dogs. 

The rest could not be a long one. At the 
end of half an hour arms were again taken up, 
and the whole turmoil swept on. 

In Menotomy a sharp conflict occurred. 
Warren, who took part in it, had a pin struck 
out of his ear-lock by a musket-ball. He had 



THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. II3 

left Boston in the morning, saying to a friend, 
" Keep up a brave heart ! They have begun 
it — that either party can do; and we'll end it 
— that only one can do ! " 

The Charlestown folk all through the after- 
noon had heard the approaching guns. At 
sunset they saw the dust and smoke of the 
battle drawing nearer to their homes. Ameri- 
can messengers came post-haste into town with 
dreadful tales of British cruelties. The troops, 
maddened by their helpless situation, had re- 
venged themselves by burning the houses along 
their track, and had killed some of the harm- 
less inmates. The people of the town, in terror, 
fled out over the Neck, and took refuge where 
they could. 

Down the road and into the streets of 
Charlestown came the hunted soldiers, flying 
in wild confusion from the stinging rain of 
bullets. They asked for shelter. The select- 
men agreed to prevent farther pursuit ; and 
Percy, on his side, promised that his men 
should not in any way harm the town. 



114 THE BATTLE DF LEXINGTON. 

The Americans contented themselves with 
setting a guard on Charlestown Neck, while 
the British soldiers, undisturbed, encamped on 
the Charlestown hills, and on the next day 
crossed to Boston. 

The battle of Lexington opened the War of 
the Revolution. 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

June 17, 1775. 

I. 

The Army at Cambridge. 

The news of the battle of Lexington spread 
as fast as hoofs could carry it, and in answer 
to the intelligence the colonies sprang to arms. 

All day and all night, and for several days 
and nights, the tramp of the militia sounded 
along roads leading to Cambridge ; for Cam- 
bridge was to be headquarters for the Ameri- 
can army. 

Not a moment was lost in obeying the sum- 
mons. The New Hampshire veteran, Colonel 
Stark, was in his saddle ten minutes after hear- 
ing of the fight. Putnam, who lived a hun- 
dred miles away, reached Cambridge in twenty- 
four hours. He was at work on his farm, when 
a horseman galloped furiously down the road 

115 



Il6 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

bringing tidings of the battle; and without 
stopping to lay aside his farmer's dress, " Old 
Put " leaped upon his fastest horse and dashed 
off to join General Heath, General Pomeroy, 
and General Ward. 

Meanwhile Gage and his soldiers were 
closely cooped in Boston. They dared not 
venture out to scatter the forces at Cambridge, 
for the Provincials greatly outnumbered them, 
and no one cared to have that April chase 
repeated. 

But re-enforcements were already crossing 
the ocean. On the 25th of May three British 
generals, Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne, — "the 
three bow-wows," people called them, — arrived 
with more troops. 

Gage was now in the best of spirits, and so 
sure of victory that he offered to pardon all 
rebels who would return to their loyalty to the 
king, — all, that is, excepting John Hancock 
and Samuel Adams. Pardon, however, was 
not what the Americans desired. 

Ten thousand men were assembled in Cam- 




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GENERAL PUTNAM. 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. II9 

bridge. They were determined to prevent the 
British from marching out again. 

On the other hand, Burgoyne had said be- 
fore leaving his vessel, " What ! ten thousand 
peasants keep five thousand king's troops shut 
up ! Well ! let us get in, and we'll soon find 
elbows-room ! " 



II. 

The Fortification of Breed's Hill. 

To get their elbow-room, the British decided 
to seize and fortify Dorchester Heights and 
the hills of Charlestown. But when their 
plans were made 'known to the Americans, 
as Gage's plans usually were, the Americans 
agreed that they themselves should fortify 
those heights and hills. 

Putnam had long been urging it. Warren 
was doubtful. Once, when the two were talk- 
ing about it together, Warren rose and walked 
two or three times across the room. " Almost 



I20 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 



1^ 



Mi 



thou persuadest me," he said at 
last to Putnam ; " but I must still 
think the project a rash one. 
Nevertheless, if the project be 
adopted and the strife becomes 
hard, you must not be surprised 
to find me in the midst of it." 

The night of the i6th of June 
was appointed for the work of 
buildincr a fort on Bunker Hill. 
At nine o'clock that evening a 
party of twelve hundred men set 
off from Cambridge for Charles- 
town. 

Through the wooded country 
roads they marched, the brave 
Colonel Prescott and two ser- 
cTeants with dark-lanterns leadino; 
them, until they arrived upon the 
open pastures of Bunker Hill. 
There a consultation was held. 
The next summit, on Breed's farm 
seemed to them a more promising 



122 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

place for their works; so to Breed's Hill they 
went, and while some were sent down to the 
water's edge to note any movement on board 
the British man-of-war anchored in the stream, 
the rest threw off their packs, seized their 
intrenching-tools, and began to dig. 

Throughout the night the men on the hill 
sank their trenches and piled up the earthen 
embankments, while the guard upon the shore 
listened for the call of the watch on the vessel 
and the distant cry of the Boston sentinel. 

" Twelve o'clock, and all's well ! " floated to 
them from the deck of the war-ship. " Twelve 
o'clock, and all is well ! " sounded again faintly 
from the Boston side. 

One, two, and three o'clock were called and 
echoed thus ; but at daybreak the thunder of 
a gun from the Lively came instead. The 
works were discovered. 

The battery on Copp's Hill now opened fire 
upon them. Its shells came singing through 
the air and ploughed great furrows in the grass. 
One of the soldiers, venturing outside the de- 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 1 23 

fences, was killed. At the unwonted sight his 
comrades blanched and paused ; but Prescott, 
mounting the parapet, walked coolly around 
the works, and his men, inspired by his cour- 
age, regained their own. 

" Who is that ? " asked Gage, looking at him 
through a glass in Boston. 

" William Prescott," was the reply. 

" Will he fight ? " queried the general 

" Yes, sir ; he is an old soldier, and will fight 
to the last drop of his blood." 

" The works must be carried," said Gage. 

Clinton advised attacking the works in the 
rear, but Gage preferred a front attack. He 
ordered two thousand men under General Howe 
to row to Moulton's Point. Moulton's Point 
is now within the Charlestown Navy Yard. 
General Pigot was to follow with more troops. 

The scarlet uniforms, massed on Long- 
Wharf or embarked in the little boats upon 
the sparkling water, were a brilliant and a 
formidable spectacle, but the Americans did 
not stop to admire or to fear. They were 



124 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 



digging, digging still; tired and hungry, but 
full of courage and hope. 

It was long past noon before Howe and 




Very deep hollow way. 
PLAN OF THE REDOUBT. 



Pigot were ready to move up the hill. By that 
time the Provincials had roughly finished the 
central fortification, a redoubt, with a breast- 
work running from its northeast corner. Be- 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 1 25 

sides this, Putnam had begun to make use of a 
stone wall, surmounted by a rail fence. He 
ordered his men to fetch other rails, to place 
them behind the first, and to fill the space 
between with the new-mown hay which lay 
upon the field. Stark, coming up with his 
New Hampshire regiment and some Connecti- 
cut troops, finished the line of fence, and took 
his stand behind the hay. 

At two o'clock Warren arrived. Although 
he had not fully approved of the plan to fortify 
Charlestown, he was ready, as he had said he 
would be, to fight in defence of the works. 

A friend had tried to persuade him that he 
was wrone in riskino^ his life at a time when 
his counsel was so much needed ; but Warren 
had replied, " Duke et decorum est pro patria 
moriT' "Sweet and fitting it is to die for one's 
country ! " 

Putnam offered Warren the post of command 
at the rail fence. 

" I am here only as a volunteer," Warren 
replied. " Where can I be most useful ? " 



126 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

" You will be under cover there," suggested 
Putnam, pointing to the redoubt. 

" Don't think I seek a place of safety," War- 
ren urged. " Where will the attack be hottest .f* " 

" That," said Putnam, still pointing to the 
redoubt, " is the enemy's object. If that can 
be maintained, the day is ours." 

Warren went to the redoubt. The men 
there, although disappointed that no detach- 
ment had come from Cambridge to assist them, 
took heart again on seeing him, and stopped 
their work to cheer. Prescott asked if he 
would give them orders. 

Warren again insisted that he was but a vol- 
unteer. " I shall take no command here," he 
said. " I came to serve under you, and shall 
be happy to learn from a soldier of your expe- 
rience." 

At a little after three, Pigot's men, firing as 
they went, marched slowly up the hill. They 
pushed forward toward the left of the redoubt. 
Howe at the same time advanced on the right, 
toward the rail fence. 




PLAN OF CHARLESTOWN. 



128 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

The Americans had been cautioned to hold 
their fire. " Don't fire till you see the whites of 
their eyes," was the command along their line. 

" The Redcoats will never reach the redoubt, 
if you obey me," said Prescott. And when some 
of his men aimed their pieces to return Pigot's 
fire, the resolute officer ran around the top of 
the parapet and kicked up their guns. 

On came the English troops. When they 
were about eisfht rods from the redoubt, the 
Americans' fire was loosed. It cut down the 
soldiers in dreadful rows. Amazed and stag- 
gered, the British ranks broke and fell away, 
in a panic, to the foot of the hill. 

Prescott praised his men. They were wild 
with joy. But the British were forming again ; 
the redoubt must have re-enforcements. Put- 
nam hastened to the Neck. There, at the 
other end of the narrow strip of land, were 
the regiments despatched by Ward ; but the 
Neck was under fire of the gunboats and was 
raked by shot and shell. Only a few com- 
panics would venture across. 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. I 29 

Burgoyne, from Copp's Hill, now sent a red- 
hot shower upon the Charlestown roofs. The 
town blazed instantly ; and while dense clouds 
of smoke rolled overhead, Howe again moved 
upon the defences. 

Again the Americans waited in silence ; 
again their fatal fire leaped out. For a second 
time the British fell back and scattered. Some 
of the soldiers rushed into the boats to put the 
river between them and that deadly hail. 

For some time now there was a lull. The 
aid which the Americans expected from Cam- 
bridge did not come. On the other hand, the 
British were supported by the presence of Gen- 
eral Clinton, who, seeing how badly the battle 
was going, had crossed to Charlestown with a 
fresh supply of men. 

Clinton saw that the north end of the breast- 
work was the weakest point. He determined 
to assail the Americans there, and to carry the 
redoubt by the bayonet. 

For the third time the Reo:ulars marched 
steadily up the hill. The Americans fired as 



130 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER MILL. 

before, but the firing was feeble. Their ammu- 
nition was gone. 

When the British discovered this, they pressed 
on and beoan to cHmb the walls of the redoubt. 
Pitcairn attempted to enter, but fell, mortally 
wounded, and was borne away by his son. A 
soldier swung himself into the enclosure by 
means of a tree near its edge. One after 
another his companions crowded in. A short 
hand-to-hand struggle ensued. Then Prescott 
gave the order to retire, and himself moving 
backward, "stepping long," gave up the day. 

The men at the rail fence covered the re- 
treat of their friends and then followed them. 
Warren lay dead upon the field. He was one 
of the last to leave the redoubt. As he retired 
a ball struck him ; and he fell, making good his 
words, " It is sweet and fitting to die for one's 
country." 

Prescott, beside himself with chagrin at the 
defeat, presented himself before General Ward 
and demanded fresh troops, saying that he 
must oro back and recover the works. His 



THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. I3I 

request was not granted. He had, indeed, 
covered himself with glory, and the country 
learned to be proud of the battle at which the 
British gained such a hardly won victory. 



WASHINGTON. 

One cause of the defeat in the battle of 
Bunker Hill was the confusion and lack of dis- 
cipline in the American forces. In fact, after 
the battle of Lexington every one saw that 
the Americans must have a commander-in-chief 
for their army. 

When Congress, the second general Con- 
gress, met at Philadelphia, in May, 1775, it 
took up this important matter. John Adams 
had in mind a man whom he thought all 
would unite in choosing. He arose to propose 
him. 

" There is," he said, " but one gentleman 

whom I should like to see in that position." 

At this Mr. Hancock was all smiles, for he, too, 

knew of but one gentleman whom he would 

like to see in that position ; and he thought 

that Mr. Adams agreed with him. 
132 




GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



WASHINGTON. 1 35 

" He is," continued Mr. Adams, " a gentle- 
man from Virginia," — here Mr. Hancock's 
countenance fell, — "a gentleman whose skill 
and experience as an officer, whose indepen- 
dent fortune, great talents, and universal char- 
acter would command the approbation of all 
America." 

Of course this was not Mr. Hancock, but 
George Washington. 

Congress offered Washington the command, 
and he accepted it, refusing, however, any pay- 
ment for his services, and saying that if his 
mere expenses could be provided for, he should 
be quite content. 

Mr. Adams was right as to Washington's 
skill and experience as an officer. He had 
been a colonel in the French War, and his 
exploits had won him golden opinions. What- 
ever he undertook was well performed ; his 
early work as a surveyor was so accurate that 
it has never had to be done over again. 

An aptness for soldiering showed itself even 
in his childhood. When only ten years old, he 



1 36 WASHINGTON. 

used to gather his playmates in squads, drill 
them, parade with them, and marshal them 
throuofh mock battles. There are several stories 
of his childhood, one of which we may, per- 
haps, still venture to repeat. Washington's 
mother owned some fine colts of which she 
was justly proud. One of these colts, a sorrel, 
no one had ever been able to tame. Washing- 
ton was determined to mount him. With the 
help of some of his young friends, he succeeded 
in getting a bit into the mouth of the really 
wild and vicious creature, and then leaped upon 
his back. The sorrel ran, bolted, kicked, and 
tried every means of throwing his rider. Finally, 
rearing and plunging in a last desperate effort 
to free himself, he fell to the ground. Wash- 
ington sprang off, but the sorrel did not rise 
again. He was dead. 

The boys looked at each other in dismay. 
Madam Washington was strict in the govern- 
ment of her household. What would she say 
to them ? At that moment they were called in 
to breakfast. 



WASHINGTON. 



^Z7 



" Pray, young gentlemen, have you seen my 
colts ? " was one of Madam Washino-ton's first 

o 

questions, when they were seated at the table. 
" My favorite, I hear, is as large as his sire." 

" Your favorite, the sorrel, is dead, madam," 
replied Washington. 

"Dead!" exclaimed his mother. "Why, 
how did that happen } " 

" The sorrel," said Washington, " has long 
been considered unmanageable, and beyond 
the power of man to back or ride. This morn- 
ing we forced a bit into his mouth. I backed 
him, I rode him ; and in a desperate struggle 
for the mastery, he fell under me, and died 
upon the spot." 

Madam Washington's cheek flushed. For a 
moment there was silence. Then she said, 
quietly, " It is well : while I regret the loss of 
my favorite, I rejoice in my son, who always 
speaks the truth." To the end of her life his 
mother always spoke of him as her good son, 
her good boy, never as the general or the 
President. 



I 1,8 WASHINGTON. 

Washington set off for Cambridge, on the 
2ist of June, 1775, to take command of the 
American army. 

He had not proceeded far when a courier 
from New England came riding toward him. 
The man carried despatches for Congress and 
gave Washington his first information of the 
battle of Bunker Hill. 

" How did the militia act ? " asked Washing- 
ton. 

" Bravely," was the reply. " They stood their 
ground, endured the enemy's fire, reserved their 
own, and then gave it with deadly effect." 

Washington was satisfied. " The liberties of 
the country are safe," he said. 

Cambridge was reached on the second of July. 
On the third, Washington, under the great elm 
near the Cambridge Common, took command 
of the army and reviewed the troops. 

The soldiers, assembled from different sec- 
tions of the country, were variously arrayed. 
Some wore the uniform in which they had 
fouo'ht, not airainst King George, but for him ; 



WASHINGTON. 



139 



some had donned the buff and blue; while a 
few of the farmers shouldered their muskets in 
plain homespun or brown jean. 




WASHINGTON ELM. 



The camp was as unmilitary In appearance 
as was the dress of its occupants. Home-made 
sail-cloth tents of different shapes and sizes 



140 WASHINGTON. 

dotted the Cambridge fields. Besides these 
there were huts of stone and of brick and 
sheds of boards, brush, and turf. 

Greene's Rhode Island troops, alone, were 
well equipped. They had canvas tents like 
those of the English soldiers, and, moreover, 
they maintained camp discipline. 

To teach camp discipline was Washington's 
first care. Privates and ofhcers alike were un- 
used to military obedience. The men had to 
be made to understand that they could not 
trudge back to their farms when the memory 
of their crops or a twinge of homesickness 
overcame them; their ofhcers needed to learn 
to lay aside their jealousies and their suspicion 
of men from other sections. 

Usually the camp was peaceful enough, but 
Irving gives the following amusing account of 
a quarrel which Washington had to settle. 

"A large party of Virginia riflemen, who 
had recently arrived in camp, were strolling 
about Cambridge, and viewing the collegiate 
buildini^s, now turned into barracks. 



WASHINGTON. I4I 

" Their half-Indian equipments and fringed 
and ruffled hunting-garbs provoked the merri- 
ment of some troops from Marblehead, chiefly 
fishermen and sailors, who thought nothing 
equal to the round jacket and trousers. A 
banterino: ensued between them. There was 
snow upon the ground, and snowballs began 
to fly when jokes were wanting. 

" The parties waxed warm with the contest. 
They closed, and came to blows. Both sides 
were re-enforced, and in a little while, at least 
a thousand were at fisticuffs ; and there was a 
tumult in the camp worthy of the days of 
Homer. ' At this juncture,' writes our inform- 
ant, 'Washington made his appearance, whether 
by accident or design, I never knew. I saw 
none of his aids with him ; his black servant 
was just behind him, mounted. He threw 
the bridle of his own horse into his servant's 
hands, sprang from his seat, rushed into the 
thickest of the melee, seized two tall, brawny 
riflemen by the throat, keeping them at arm's 
length, talking to and shaking them. . . . The 



142 WASHINGTON. 

combatants dispersed in all directions ; and in 
less than three minutes none remained on the 
ground but the two he had collared.' " 

Meanwhile the months were passing, and 
Washington had not attempted to drive the 
British out of Boston. People wondered at it, 
and many blamed him. 

Washington kept his own counsel. He 
would not have had the British guess the rea- 
son for his delay, but the truth was that he 
had not enough powder to carry him through 
an attack. He had been told that there were 
three hundred barrels of it on hand. This was 
a mistake. There had been three hundred ; 
there remained only thirty. 

Powder, cannon, mortars, howitzers, and a 
supply of lead and flints had been captured by 
a party of Americans who had taken posses- 
sion of Ticonderoga, a fort on Lake Champlain ; 
and Washington had sent Henry Knox thither 
to fetch the needed stores, but that was a diffi- 
cult undertaking, and required time, for this 
was years before the first railroad was built, 



WASHINGTON. 1 43 

and Knox had to find means of transport. It 
was not until January that he could write, " I 
have made forty-two exceedingly strong sleds, 
and have provided eighty yoke of oxen to drag 




THE CRAIGIE HOUSE. 



them as far as Springfield, where I shall get 
fresh cattle to take them to camp." 

It was February before the sledges arrived 
in Cambridge. In the meantime Washington 
established himself in the Craigie House, where 
his w^ife soon joined him ; and they made the 



144 WASHINGTON. 

winter as endurable as they could by enter- 
taining the American officers and others in the 
general's leisure hours. Moreover, there was 
plenty of work for his soldiers, for the shore 
and hills needed to be fortified. Under Wash- 
ington's directions a line of defences, eight or 
nine miles long, stretched in a broken semicircle 
from Winter Hill, near the Mystic River, to 
Dorchester Neck; and Boston, with the British 
army shut up in it, was held in siege. 



THE EVACUATION OF BOSTON. 
March 17, 1776. 

While Washington waited for ammunition 
the British in Boston fared badly. 

Food was scarce and poor. It was " pork 
and beans one day, beans and pork another." 
Even in Gao^e's household fresh meat was sel- 
dom to be seen. Putnam, knowing their strait, 
sent General Gage's wife " a fine quarter of 
veal," for which he received " a very polite card 
of thanks." 

In October Gage, "the mild general," as King 
George called him, went back to England, and 
Howe was left in command of the forces in 
Boston. Howe would probably have marched 
out upon the Americans in Cambridge, had he 
guessed their lack of powder. Washington's 
secrets, however, were not, like General Gage's, 
"furnished with wings," and the British re- 
mained in daily expectation of an attack. 

145 



146 THE EVACUATION OF BOSTON. 

As the winter wore on, fuel failed. Wood 
was ten dollars a cord, — an enormous price in 
those days. Even at that price it was difficult 
to find, and the soldiers were ordered to pull 
down the older houses of the town to feed the 
fires. Governor Winthrop's house was torn to 
the ground, and the buttonwoods upon his land 
were felled. Many, indeed, were the trees laid 
low by British axes. Liberty Tree the Red- 
coats hewed down with a will. It was to them 
one of the archrebels. But they did not win 
over it a bloodless victory ; for a soldier, while 
climbing out upon one of its branches, lost his 
footing and was killed. 

For amusement, the officers gave grand balls, 
which the daughters of Boston Tories were 
glad to attend ; and they also had theatrical 
entertainments. Burgoyne himself wrote a 
play which was performed in Faneuil Hall. 

The Old South Church they turned into a 
riding-school. Its pulpit was removed ; many 
of the pews were split up for firewood, and one, 
a beautifully carved pew belonging to Deacon 



THE EVACUATION OF BOSTON. 1 47 

Hubbard, was used for a pig-stye. The floor 
was spread with gravel, and a bar was put up, 
four feet high, near the Milk Street door. Here 
the young officers practised leaping, while spec- 
tators watched them from seats provided for 
them in the eastern gallery. Numbers of books 
and papers stored in the church were burned. 
It was believed for many years that the second 
volume of Governor Winthrop's journal had 
been thus destroyed ; but years after it was 
found, safe and whole. 

By the latter part of February, however, 
Washington was able to give the British in 
Boston something besides riding and dancing 
and acting to think of ; for when Knox's eighty 
yoke of oxen, with their fifty cannon and other 
munitions of war, came plodding into the 
Cambridge camp, guns were mounted upon 
the batteries and part of the precious powder 
was used in hinting to the British, by means 
of a few cannon-balls, that they could not ex- 
pect to occupy Boston much longer. 

Washington proceeded to force them out by 



148 



THE EVACUATION OF BOSTON. 



fortifying Dorchester Heights. On the 4th of 
March a heavy cannonading from the Cam- 
bridge and Roxbury batteries was begun. The 
British thouoht that the Americans intended 

an immediate at- 
tack upon the town, 
but they were mis- 
taken. The firing 
was merely a feint, 
and was kept up 
for the purpose of 
drowning the rum- 
bhng of a long line 
of heavy carts that 
had set out from 
Cambridge and. 
were jolting through Roxbury on their way to 
the Twin Hills on Dorchester Heights. 

Three hundred of these carts, loaded with 
fascines, bundles of screwed hay, and other 
materials for the walls of the forts, were sent 
from Cambridge. In front of them( marched 
General Thomas with twelve hundred armed 




SCALE OF MILES 



BOSTON AND VICINITY, SHOWING DOR- 
CHESTER HEIGHTS. 



THE EVACUATION OF BOSTON. 1 49 

men, and eight hundred more who carried in- 
trenching-tools. They proceeded across the 
bridge over the Charles, and around by Dor- 
chester Neck to the double summit, the high 
land near the eastern end of the peninsula. 
There the workers divided ; half took one, half 
the other, crest. 

All night they built and dug, as had Pres- 
cott^ men at Bunker Hill, and at daybreak the 
astonished British saw two fortresses upon the 
Heights. 

Howe, looking at them with amazement, ex- 
claimed, " The rebels have done more in one 
night than my whole army would have accom- 
plished in a month ! " 

British cannon from the Boston forts now 
opened fire upon the works. The balls, crash- 
ing and bounding about the w^alls, were scarcely 
heeded by the men, eagerly building on. 

Washington rode anxiously about, remind- 
ing the troops of the date, the 5th of March. 
He had chosen his time, knowing that his sol- 
diers would be inspired to greater exertions by 



150 THE EVACUATION OF BOSTON. 

the memories awakened by that day. Every- 
where he was answered by patriotic cheers. 

He had expected the British to attack the 
Heights at once, and Putnam was waiting in 
Cambridge, hoping to cross the Charles and 
carry Boston in the absence of part of the Brit- 
ish garrison. 

Howe decided, however, to make a night 
attack. All day long the British could be seen 
hurrying hither and thither about the streets, 
but not until late in the afternoon did they 
leave the wharves. Toward nightfall a portion 
of them entered the boats and rowed to Castle 
William, to be joined by the soldiers there in 
the assault. 

But with the night came a furious storm of 
wind and rain. The surf was high, and the 
boats and transports which put off from Castle 
Island could not land on the main shore. The 
storm continued through the following day. 
By the time it had ceased, the American works 
were too strong to be successfully assailed. 
Howe and Percy gave up all hope of being 



thp: evacuation of bostox. 151 

able to overcome them, and began to consider 
how they could get out of Boston with the 
least damage to their men and to their pride. 

The Tories of the town were informed that 
if the British troops were allow^ed to leave in 
peace, they would refrain from injuring any 
property ; but that if the American army threat- 
ened them with attack or pursuit, Boston should 
be given to the flames. 

The inhabitants, therefore, prepared a paper, 
stating the case, and sent it under a flag of 
truce to the American lines. This paper was 
carried to Washington at Cambridge ; but as it 
bore no address, Washington would not return 
any formal answer. He did order the firing to 
cease, however, and the British, understanding 
that they were not to be harassed, slowly began 
to make ready for departure. 

Still the days went by, and they did not 
go; so on the i6th of March Washington 
erected a fortification on Nook's Hill, whence 
his guns could, if necessary, thoroughly rake 
the town. 



152 THE EVACUATION OF BOSTON. 

Then there was haste indeed. On the 17th 
the harbor was crowded with vessels. Trans- 
ports and men-of-war lay waiting for the signal 
to be off ; little boats pulled out to them from 
the wharves, bearing their loads of scarlet- 
coated soldiers ; sailing-vessels of all sorts, bear- 
ing the families of men who had sided with the 
king, hovered anxiously about, ready to follow 
the rest. 

Down from the hill in Charlestown marched 
the British o-uard ; but the redoubt for which 
they had fought so hard was not wholly emptied. 
A number of faithful sentinels still stood with 
shouldered muskets within the earthen walls. 

Surprised that any should linger while their 
comrades pushed out into the stream, a party 
of Americans, partly suspecting a trick, cau- 
tiously approached the place. The sentinels 
did not move ; they were simply men of straw. 

Great was the rejoicing of the American 
army when the last Redcoat vanished from 
Boston and the last British sail passed the 
Castle. Patriot troops flocked in over Rox- 



THE EVACUATION OF BOSTON. 



5o 



bury Neck. Everywhere they saw signs of the 
long and hostile occupation. The streets were 
strewn with crows' feet 
— sharp iron prongs — 
to prevent pursuit ; the 
public buildings were de- 
faced, and many of the 
dwellings ruined. Sam- 
uel Adams's house, espe- 
cially, had suffered. He 
never lived in it again. 

The country now rang 
with praises of Washing- 
ton. Congress passed a 
unanimous vote of thanks, 
and ordered a large gold 
medal to be made for him 
in commemoration of the 
evacuation of Boston. 

As for the British troops, they sailed first to 
Halifax, and then to New York, to continue 
there the war that was only begun in Massa- 
chusetts, — the War of the Revolution. 




THE WASHINGTON MEDAL. 



154 THE EVACUATION OF BOSTON. 

On the 4th of July of that year, 1776, inde- 
pendence was declared. It was then that 
the colonies began to call themselves states 
and that Massachusetts took her stand as a 
commonwealth. Long live the Commonwealth 
of Massachusetts ! 



NOTES. 



The English Colonies in America. 

Pages i-8. 

Children or young people should read about the early 
settlements of America in some short history of the United 
States, like Higginson's or Montgomery's. 

Boston in 1760. 

[See The Memorial History of Bos to7i, Drake's 0/d Land- 
marks of Boston, etc.] 

The Map of Old Boston is the Burgess map, with some 
omissions and one or two additional names. It is taken 
from the reprint issued by the Bostonian Society. The key 
to the map is kindly furnished by Mr. Wilham Lawrence. 

Page 9. 

Boston Streets. A curve in the street usually indicates 
that there was once a small hill to be avoided in that place, 
or a marsh to be skirted, or the shore line to be followed. 
Drake, on p. xix of his Tea Leaves says : " There were 
no sidewalks in the town, and, except when driven aside by 
carts or carriages, every one walked in the middle of the 
streets, Svhere the pavement was the smoothest.' " 

155 



156 NOTES. 

Pack 10. 

The Old South Church. Winthrop's house and garden, 
often called " The Green," belonged, after Winthrop's death, 
to his son Stephen. From Stephen's widow it passed to 
John Norton, and in 1677 Norton's widow gave the garden 
plot to some seceding members of the old First Church. 
They built upon it a meeting-house, which, standing in the 
southern part of the town, was spoken of as the South Meet- 
ing-house, or, later, when others were put up in the same 
L^eneral neighborhood, as the Old South. The first building 
was of wood ; the present brick building was put up in 
1729. A tablet over the Washington Street door bears this 
inscription : — 

OLD SOUTH. 
Church Gathered, 1669. 
First House Buh^t, 1670. 
This House Erected, 1729. 
Desecrated by British Troops, 1775-6. 

The Town House, or Old State House. The first build- 
ing, finished in 1659, was of wood. It was burned in 1711. 
In 1 71 2 a second building, of brick, was raised. That was 
burned in 1747, and the third, erected in 1748, is substan- 
tially the same that stands to-day. The arches upon which 
it formerly stood have given way for solid walls, but other- 
wise it looks much as it did at the time of the Revolution. 

The First Church. The first biilding built as a place for 
worship was near the market-place. Brazier's Building, on 
State Street, marks its site. 



NOTES. 



157 



King's Chapel. "The establishment of the Church of 
England in Boston," says Mr. Samuel Adams Drake, in his 
Old Landmarks of Boston, " was attended with great oppo- 
sition. ... In 1646 a petition praying for the privilege of 
Episcopal worship, addressed to the General Court at 
Boston, caused the petitioners to be fined for seditious 
expressions, and the seizure of their papers. ... In 1686 
. . . the first Episcopal services were held in the old Town 
House. . . . The town, however, continued to refuse the 
use of any of the meeting-houses." 

When Sir Edmund Andros came, he demanded the use 
of the Old South Meeting-house. On the 2 2d of March, 
Sewall tells us, in his diary, Andros inspected the three 
meeting-houses. On the 23d he sent for the keys of the 
Old South, and, though Mr. Sewall and others remonstrated 
with him, declaring that the meeting-house was theirs, and 
that they could not consent to part with it for such a use, 
the keys were obtained and services were held on Friday, 
the 25th. Andros and the council, after trying in vain to 
buy part of Cotton Hill for the site of a new church, took 
possession of a corner of what had been Mr. Isaac Johnson's 
land, used since Mr, Johnson's death as a burying-ground. 

Here the first King's Chapel was built in the year 1688, 
a wooden structure with a square tower. In 1753 new walls 
of stone were laid around the old church, and the present 
building arose. It was called King's Chapel, or, in the reign 
of Queen Anne, Queen's Chappell ; during the Revolution 
its name was changed to Stone Chapel, but the original 
name is restored. 

The Province House, which stood somewhat back from 



1 58 NOTES. 

Washington Street, was built in 1679, and was owned by 
Peter Sergeant. It was of brick, with a flight of sandstone 
steps leading up to the portico. The royal governors after- 
ward occupied the house. Bernard lived there at times ; so 

did Gage. 

Page 14. 

Christ Church was built six years before the brick building 
of the Old SoTith was erected ; that is, in 1723. The chime 
of bells hanging in its steeple was cast and consecrated in 
England. Each bell bears an inscription. As given in Old- 
Landmarks of Boston the inscriptions are as follows : — 

First Bell. 
" This peal of eight bells is the gift of a number of generous persons 
to Christ Church, N. E. Anno 1744. A. R." 

Second Bell. 
"This church was founded in the year 1723. Timothy Cutler, D.D., 
the first Rector. A. R. 1723." 

Fourth Bell. 
" God preserve the Church of England. A. R. 1744." 

Fifth Bell. 
"William Shirley, Esq., C.overnor of the Massachusetts Bay, in New- 
England. Anno 1744." 

Sixth Bell. 
" The subscription for these bells was begun by John Hammock and 
Robert Temple, Church Wardens, Anno 1743; completed by Robert 
Jenkins and John Could, Church Wardens, Anno 1744." 

Seventh Bell. 
" Since generosity has opened our mouths, our tongues shall ring 
aloud ill praise. 1774." 

Eicinii l^ELL. 
"Abel Rudhall, of C.louccstor, cast us all. Anno 1774." 



NOTES. 



Paok 15, 



159 



John Winthrop, Governor of the Massachusetts Bay 
Colony, was born in Groton, England, whence he came to 
America in 1630. He, with his Puritan company, founded 
Boston, which received its name September 17, 1630. He 
died on the 26th. of March, 1649, ^^^ ^^'^^ buried in the 
King's Chapel burying-ground. 

Francis Bernard was born in England. He studied at 
Oxford, and was first appointed governor of New Jersey ; 
after two years of service in that colony he was transferred 
to Massachusetts. " He loved literature and science, could 
write elegies in Latin and Greek, used to say that he could 
repeat the whole of Shakespeare ; and had gifts of conversa- 
tion which charmed the social circle. . . . He was a good 
hater of republican institutions, . . . and deemed it a marvel 
that Charles H. had not made a clean sweep of the little 
New England republics, . . . and had not supplied their 
place with more aristocratic governments. . . . He thought 
that though people might bluster a little when such a reform 
was proposed, yet they never would resist by force ; and if 
they did, a demonstration of British power, such as the 
presence of the king's troops in a few coast towns, and the 
occupation of a few harbors by the royal navy, would soon 
settle the country." [Frothingham's Life of IVarren, p. 29.] 
On the 31st of July, 1769, Bernard sailed to England, to 
report to the king the state of the province, leaving Hutchin- 
son, the lieutenant-gover tor, to administer affairs in his 
absence. He never returned, but died in 1779. 



1 60 NOTES. 



Page 16. 



George III. was born in 1742, came to the throne in 
1760, and died in 1820, at the age of seventy-eight years, 
having been for ten years bUnd, deaf, and insane. [Mont- 
gomery's Leading Facts of English History.'] 

Page 19. 

Taxation by Parliament. For this question and that of 
the king's prerogative and the new problem presented by 
the new state of things brought about by America's strength 
and self-dependence, see Green's History of the English 
People, Vol. IV., Book IX., Chap. I. 

Page 20. 

Representation in Parliament. " If we are not repre- 
sented," said the Massachusetts legislature, " we are slaves." 
Yet there is no doubt that most of the patriots preferred 
local self-government to representation in Parliament. 

The Stamp Act. 

[See Green, and the Me?norial History of Bostofi. Hutch- 
inson, in his History of Massachusetts, is extremely interest- 
ing here.] 

1'a(;e 21. 

Stamped Papers. " A ream of common blank bail bonds 
had usually been sold for jQi^ ', a ream of stamped bonds 
cost ;^ioo." [Temple's History of Frami?igham.'] 

Benjamin Franklin. [See the Autohiography?\ 



NOTES. 1 6 1 

Page 22. 
The Assembly replied, etc. [Hutchinson, History of 
Massachusetts, Vol. III., p. 465.] 

Page 25. 

Sons of Liberty. Barr4, in one of his eloquent speeches 
in defence of America, alluded to the colonists as " Sons of 
Liberty." The phrase was caught up and used as the name 
for an organization of patriots. This organization had its 
centre in New York, and branches in all the other colonies. 
The men forming the nucleus for the Boston Sons of Liberty 
had formerly called themselves the '' Union Club." After 
the change of name each member of the Boston organization 
wore, on public occasions, a medal, " on one side of which 
was the figure of a stalwart arm, grasping in its hand a pole, 
surmounted with a cap of liberty, and surrounded by the 
words * Sons of Liberty.' On the reverse was a representa- 
tion of Liberty Tree." \_Tea Leaves, p. Ixix.] 

The cut shows one of the stamps. 

Thomas Hutchinson. 

[See Diary and Letters of Thomas Hutchi7ison, by P. O. 
Hutchinson.] Frothingham says : " Thomas Hutchinson, 
descended from one of the most respected famihes of 
New England, and the son of an honored Boston merchant, 
was now [in 1769] fifty-seven years old. . . .' He was 
distinguished by ' an irreproachable private character, 
pleasing manners, common-sense view of things ; and 
politics rather adroit than high-toned secured him a run 
of popular favor. . . . He was, and had been for years, the 
master spirit of the Tory party." \Life of Warrefi, p. 107 ] 



1 62 NOTES. 

On the ist of June, 1774, Hutchinson sailed for London, 
to lay before the king the affairs of the province. On arriv- 
ing he was immediately summoned to King George's pres- 
ence. The king asked him many questions concerning 
America, and, among other remarks about the patriots, ob- 
served, " I see they threatened to pitch and feather you ! " 

"Tar and feather, may it please your Majesty," replied 
Hutchinson ; " but I don't remember that I was ever threat- 
ened by it." It would have been well for George the Third 
if he could have been as easily set right in other mistaken 
ideas as to his provinces. Hutchinson " died in England on 
the 3d of June, 1 780, suddenly, as he was stepping into his 
carriage." [Frothingham, same, p. 502.] 

Pagi'". 29. 

The first general congress met at New York, Oct. 7, 

1765- 

Liberty Tree was one of several large elms near the 
corner of Essex and Washington Streets. A stone tablet, 
set in the wall of a building opposite the foot of Boylston 
Street, marks the site where the tree once stood. 

Pac^k 30. 
Andrew Oliver was Hutchinson's brother-in-law. He 
was to have been the stamp distributer. When Hutchinson 
l:)ecame governor, Oliver was made lieutenant-governor. 

Page 34. 
"His eldest daughter," etc. [See Hutchinson's account.] 
" The doors," etc. [Hutchinson's Historx, Vol. III., |). 

,24.] 



NOTES. 163 

Page 35. 
The stamped paper. That which was sent to Boston was 
stored at Castle Island. 

Samuel Adams. 
I. The Father of the Revolution. 

Samuel Adams was born on Sunday, Sept. 16, 1722, 
in the Purchase Street house, which was built by his father. 
The Adams land extended from Purchase Street to low water 
mark, and fronted the harbor. " On the roof was an observ- 
atory and a railing with steps leading up from the interior." 

Adams graduated from Harvard at the age of eighteen, in 
1 740. " At that time position in the classes was determined 
by the wealth and standing of families. In a class of twenty- 
two young Adams stood fifth." [Wells's Life of Samuel 
Adams. ^ 

" He studied law for a time, but quitted study to enter a 
counting-house, and finally entered business with his father. 
They lost money ; indeed, Adams was never a good business 
man." [Same.] He died in 1803. 

PAt;K ig. 

The Father of the Revolution. He was called not only 
the Father of the Revolution, but the last of the Puritans. 
Tudor says of him : " Every day and every hour was employed 
in some contribution towards the main design; if not in 
action, in writing ; if not with the pen, in conversation ; if 
not in talking, in meditation." Otis, he adds, used to write 
first draughts of political papers and " hand them over to 
Sam to quievecue them." [Life of OtisT^ 



1 64 NOTES. 

Pac;e 40. 

" Only think of it," etc. [Wells's Life of Samuel Adams, 
Vol. L, p. 167.] 

Page 43. 

The non-importation agreement. [See the Me77io7'ial 
History of Boston.'] 

II. The Boston Massacre. 

For the details as given here, see Frothingham's Life of 
Warren, Wells's Life of Samuel Adams, and the Memorial 
History of Boston. 

Page 46. 

Henry Knox, afterward General Knox. 

Page 47. 

Paul Revere — says Mr. Winsor, in a foot-note on p. 40 
of the Mefnorial History — took the occasion of the first 
anniversary of the massacre, in 1771, to rouse the sensibili- 
ties of the crowd by giving illuminated pictures of the event, 
with allegorical accompaniments, at the windows of his house 
in North Square. 

Page 48. 

Crispus Attucks. An account of Crispus Attucks is given 
in Livermore's Research on Negroes as Slaves, Mass. Hist. 
Soc. Proc. 1862, p. 173. 

Page 49. 

Preston and his men were tried with scrupulous fairness. 
" As a result of the trial, Preston was acquitted, six of the 



NOTES. 165 

soldiers were brought in ' not guilty,' and two were found 
guilty of manslaughter, branded in the hand in open court, 
and then discharged." {^Memorial History^ Vol. III., p. 38.] 

III. Sam Adams's Regiments. 
Page 50. 

The meeting was held in Faneuil Hall in the morning, but 
in the afternoon adjourned to the Old South. 

Colonel Dalrymple and Colonel Carr commanded the 
regiments. 

Page 54. 

" Sam Adams's regiments." It was Lord North who first 
spoke of the troops sent to Castle Island as " Sam Adams's 
two regiments." 

The Boston Tea-Party. 

[See the Memorial History of Boston, Vol. III., p. 44, 
and Tea Leaves, by F. S. Drake.] 

Page 55. 
New Jersey Tea, -- Ceanothus Americamis. 

Page 56. 
An English penny is worth two of our cents. 

Page 57. 

Grito's Wharf was opposite the foot of Hutchinson 
Street, now Pearl Street. It has since been replaced by 
Liverpool Wharf. 



1 66 NOTES. 

Twenty days after her arrival in port, a vessel was liable 
to seizure for the non-payment of duties on articles imported 
in her. 

Page 6i. 

"We placed a sentry," etc. \^Tea Leaves, p. Ixxi.] 

Page 62. 

'' The captain of the brig," etc. [John Andrews, in Tea 
Leaves, p. Ixix.] 

"In the space of two or three hours," etc. [Massachu- 
setts Gazette, quoted in Tea Leaves, p. Ixviii.] 

General Gage. 
[See the Me jno rial History of Bos ton. ~\ 

I. The Port Bill and Regulation Act. 
Page 67. 

General Gage. " Thomas Gage," says Frothingham, 
"arrived at Boston May 13, 1774, as captain-general and 
governor of Massachusetts. He was not a stranger in the 
colonies. He had exhibited gallantry in Braddock's defeat, 
and aided in carrying the ill-fated general from the field. 
He had married in one of the most respected families in 
New York, and had partaken of the hospitalities of the 
people of Boston. His manners were pleasing. Hence he 
entered upon his public duties with a large measure of popu- 
larity. But he took a narrow view of men and things about 
him. . . . General Gage proved, as a civilian and a soldier, 
unfit for his position." \_Life of Warren, p. 5.] 



NOTES. 167 

The Port Bill. " A measure for suspending the trade and 
closing the harbor of Boston during the king's pleasure, and 
enforcing the act by the joint operations of an army and a 
fleet." [Rev. Edward G. Porter in the Memorial History 
of Boston^ Vol. III., p. 51.] 

Marblehead was declared to be the port of entry, Salem 
the capital. The people of these towns, however, stood by 
Boston bravely ; the merchants offered Boston men the use 
of their wharves, and the townsfolk sent provisions by land, 
a distance of twenty-eight miles. [Same.] 

Page 68. 

The Regulation Acts. [See the Memorial History.'] 
The Suffolk Resolves were written by Joseph Warren, in 
a house still standing in the village of Milton Lower Mills. 

Page 69. 

The seizure of the powder belonging to the province 
warned the Bostonians that they must look to their other 
possessions. Tudor, in his Life of Otis, tells us that — 

In November, 1 766, four guns were ordered bought by the 
general court of Boston. Two of them were kept in a gun- 
house opposite the West Street Mall. Major Paddock intended 
to hand the guns over to the British, but when his men went 
to fetch them they were gone. The men searched for them. 
They went into the school-house which was near to hunt for 
them. There were the boys at their books, there was the 
master Holbrook, with one foot, which was lame, resting on 
a large box under his desk. In that box, as the boys very 
well knew, were the cannon. The master knew it, too. He 



1 68 NOTES. 

begged the soldiers to excuse him if he remained seated ; they 
assured him that he must not think of rising. The guns 
were not to be seen, and the soldiers took themselves off. 
For a fortnight longer that big box was undisturbed ; then 
one evening the two brass cannon were taken out and 
trundled on a wheelbarrow to Whitten's blacksmith's shop 
at the South End, where they were hidden under a pile of 
coal. There they lay for some time, but finally they were 
again removed by night and carried to the American camp. 

II. Gage's Scouts in Worcester and Concord. • 
Page 70, 

De Berniere's account, on which this chapter is based, is 
in Vol. IV., 2d Series, of the Mass, Hist. Coll. 

In the same volume are Gage's instructions to Brown and 
De Berniere. They were as follows : 

"Boston, February 22, 1775. 

" Gentlemen : 

" You will go through the counties of Suffolk and 
Worcester, taking a sketch of the country as you pass; . . . 

" The rivers also to be sketched out, remarking their breadth and 
depth, . . . the fords, if any, and the nature of their bottoms. . . . 

" You will remark the heights you meet with, whether the ascents 
are difficult or easy; . . . 

"The nature of the country to be particularly noticed, whether in- 
closed or open; . . . and whether the country admits of making roads 
for troops on the right or left of the main road. . . . 

"You will notice the situation of the towns and villages, their 
churches and churchyards, whether they are advantageous spots to 
take post in. . , . 

" If any places strike you as proper for encampments . . . you \\\\\ 
remark them particularly, and give reasons for your opinions. 



NOTES. 1 69 

" It would be useful if you could inform yourselves of the necessaries 
their different counties could supply, such as provisions, forage, straw, 
etc., the number of cattle, horses, etc., in the several townships. 
" I am, Gentlemen, your most obedient, humble servant, 

"THOMAS GAGE. 
"To Capt. Brown, 52d Regiment, 
and Ensign D'Berniere, loth Regiment. 

" (Copy)." 

Joseph Warren. 
See Frothingham's Life of JVar/r//. 

Page 85. 

Joseph Warren was bom in Roxbury, on June 11, 1741. 
At the age of fourteen he entered Harvard College. He 
studied medicine under the direction of Dr. James Lloyd. 
Extremely winning in person and admirable in character, he 
was greatly beloved. Samuel Adams became one of hi-s 
warmest friends. He devoted himself to the patriot cause. 

He saw the firing of the soldiers upon his fellow-townsmen, 
on the 5th of March, 1770, and gave an oration in 1772, 
commemorating the death of those who fell. 

He took part in the work of the committee of correspond- 
ence, and was present at the patriotic meetings at the time of 
the destruction of the tea, and when preparations for war 
began he determined to seek active service in the field. 

The Battle of Lexington. 
L R\UL Revere's RmE. 
See Memorial History of Boston, Vol. KL, p. loi, 



I -JO 



NOTES. 



Revere's letter, Mass. Hist. Coll., Vol. V., of the ist Series, 
Frothingham's Siege of Boston, and Hudson's History of 
Lexington. 

Page 92. 

Warren's house. Warren at that time lived on Hanover 
Street, where the American House now stands. \_Me?norial 
History, Vol. HI., p. 59.] 

Page 95. 

Revere's horse was furnished by Deacon Larkin. 

Longfellow's stirring poem, The Midnight Ride of Paul 
Revere, represents Revere as waiting on the Charlestown 
side, and receiving his first intimation of the route of the 
British from the Boston signals. The " poet's license " will 
be observed in other portions of the poem. 

John Hancock's aunt, Mrs. Hancock, and his lady-love, 
Dorothy Quincy, were at Mr. Clark's house at the time. 
Madame Dorothy, in giving an account of the night [see the 
Magazine of American Histo?y for 1888], said that it was not 
until break of day that Mr. Hancock could be persuaded that 
it was improper to expose himself; but that then, overcome 
by the entreaties of his friends, he, with Mr. Adams, went 
over to Woburn. " The ladies remained and saw the battle 
commence. Mrs. Scott (Dorothy Hancock) says \_Maga- 
zine of American History\ the British fired first, she is sure. 
. . . One of the first British bullets whizzed by old Mrs. 
Hancock's head, as she was looking out of the door, and 
struck the barn ; she cried out, * What is that? ' They toll 
her it was a bullet, and she must take care of herself. . . . 
After the l>ritish passed on towards Concord, the ladies re- 



XOTES. 171 

ceived a letter from Mr. Hancock, informing tliem wliere he 
and Mr. Adams were ; wishing them to get into the carriage 
and come over, and bring theyf//^ salmon that they had had 
sent them to dinner. This they carried over in the car- 
riage, and had got it nicely cooked, and were just sitting 
down to eat it, when in came a man from Lexington, whose 
house was upon the main road, and who cleared out (leav- 
ing his wife and family at home) as soon as he saw the Brit- 
ish bayonets glistening, as they descended the hills on their 
return from Concord. Half frightened to death, he ex- 
claimed, * The British are coming ! My wife's in etarnity 
now ! ' Mr. Hancock and Mr. Adams, supposing the British 
troops were at hand, went into the swamp, and staid until 
the alarm was over." 

II. The March of the British, 

Page 10 i. 

Messrs. Gerry, Orne, and Lee were in their beds, in the 
tavern at Menotomy, now Arlington, when the alarm was 
given. They were but half dressed when the British came 
in sight. The landlord guided them to a back door, and 
they escaped into a field, where they lay concealed in the 
stubble, while a squad of soldiers searched the house. 
[Frothingham's History of the Siege of Boston, p. 60.] 

III. The Skirmish at Lexington. 

Page 103. 

Captain Parker. Captain John Parker, who commanded 
the Lexington men, was the grandfather of Theodore Parker. 



172 NOTES. 

He was ill on the day of the battle, but " did his duty from 
2 A.M. till 12 at night." 

"Don't fire unless fired upon," etc. [Weiss's Life of 
Theodore Parke7', Vol. I., p. 11.] 

Samuel Adams, in Woburn, having heard the guns at 
Lexington, exclaimed, "This is a glorious day!" "It is, 
indeed," answered one of his companions, thinking that he 
referred to the brightness of the early morning. " I mean," 
said Samuel Adams, " that it is a glorious day for America ! " 

Page 105. 

Killed at Lexington: Jonas Parker, who had said he 
would never run from the British, and who, even after being 
wounded, discharged his gun and remained to meet his 
death at the point of the bayonet ; Robert Monroe, who had 
been the standard-bearer of his company at the capture of 
Louisburg ; Samuel Hadley, John Brown, both killed after 
they had left the common ; Jonathan Harrington, who was 
shot, and dragged himself to the door, only to die before he 
reached the threshold ; Caleb Harrington, Isaac Muzzy, and 
Asahel Porter. [Frothingham's Siege of Boston, p. 80.] 

TV. The Concord Fight. 

Page 105. 

A large portion of the stores had been removed before the 
1 8th of April ; and, after receiving Dr. Prescott's alarm, the 
inhabitants of Concord spent the remainder of the night in 
secreting as much as possible of those that were left. 



i7di 



NOTES. 

Page io6. 
Explanation of the Map. 

1. Lexington Road. 

2. Hill where the liberty pole stood. 

3. Centre of the town and main body of the British. 

4. Road to the South Bridge. 

5. Road to the North Bridge and to Colonel Barrett's, two miles from 

the centre of the town. 

6. High grounds where the militia assembled. 

7. Road along which they marched to dislodge the British. 

8. Spot where Davis and Hosmer fell. 

9. Rev. Mr. Emerson's house. 

10. Bridges and roads made in 1793, when the old roads, with dotted 
lines, were discontinued. [Frothingham's Siege of Boston, p. 70.] 

V. The Retreat of the British. 
Page 112. 

Percy's brigade had met with a long delay. It finally fell 
in with Smith's men about half a mile below the Lexington 
meeting-house. [Frothingham's Siege of Boston, p. 76.] 

The American loss for the day was 49 killed, 39 wounded, 
5 missing. The British loss was : 73 killed, 1 74 wounded, 
26 missing. [Frothingham's Siege of Boston."] 

The Battle of Bunker Hill. 

See Frothingham's Siege of Boston. 

After the battle of Lexington, the following circular letter, 
addressed to the towns of Massachusetts, was, among others, 
issued. This is in Warren's handwriting. 



1/4 



NOTES, 



" Gentlemen : The barbarous murders committed on our innocent 
brethren, on Wednesday, the 19th instant, have made it absohitely nec- 
essary that we immediately raise an army to defend our wives and our 
children from the butchering hands of an inhuman soldiery, who . . . 
will, without the least doubt, take the first opportunity in their power 
to ravage this devoted country with fire and sword. We conjure you, 
therefore, by all that is dear, by all that is sacred, that you give all 
assistance possible in forming an army. Our all is at stake. . . . Every 
moment is infinitely precious. An hour lost may deluge your country 
in blood. . . . We beg and entreat, as you will answer to your coun- 
try, to your own consciences, and, above all, as you will answer to God 
himself, that you will hasten and encourage by all possible means the 
collection of men to form the army, and send them forward to head- 
quarters at Cambridge, with that expedition which the vast importance 
and instant urgency of the affair demand." [Frothingham's Life of 
JVarre}t, p. 466.] 

Page 115. 

General Putnam was l^orn in Salem, Massachusetts, on 
the 7th of January, 1718, but the greater part of his Ufe was 
spent in Pomfret, Connecticut. He distinguished himself 
in the French War, and was also prominent among the Con- 
necticut Sons of Liberty. He died May 19, 1790. 

Page 116. 

General Heath was younger, having been born in 1737, 
in Roxbury. 

General Pomeroy was from Northami)ton, and had been 
a lieutenant-colonel in the French War. 

General Ward was born in 1727. Bancroft says that he 
" had the virtues of a magistrate rather than a soldier." 

Pack 119. 

"Almost thou persuadest me," etc. [Frothingham, p. 
505-] 



NOTES. 175 



Page 120. 



Colonel Prescott was born in 1726. He was ''six feet in 
height, of strong and inteUigent features, with blue eyes and 
brown hair. . . . He was . . . plain but courteous in his 
manners ; of a limited education, but fond of reading ; never 
in a hurry, and cool and self-possessed in danger." [Froth- 
ingham's Siege of Boston.'] 

Pack 125. 

"Between twelve and one o'clock, a horseman rode furi- 
ously into Cambridge with the report that ' the Regulars had 
landed at Charlestown.' ... It was a very hot summer's 
day, with a burning sun. Warren was suffering from a ner- 
vous headache ; he had been occupied through the night 
with public business, and threw himself on a bed; but 
after the alarm was given he rose, and, saying that his head- 
ache was gone, started for the scene of action. ... He 
came within range of the British batteries at the low, flat 
ground (Charlestown Neck) . . .; and the firing, at the 
time he passed, between two and three o'clock, must have 
been severe." [Frothingham, p. 513.] 

Three days before the battle Warren was made a major- 
general. 

" Dulce est decorum est," etc. [Frothingham's Life of 
Warren.'] 

Page 128. 

The order, "Wait till you see the whites of their eyes," 
was not original with the Provincials. It had been given in 
Frederick's wars. On May 22, 1745, Prince Charles, cutting 



176 



NOTES. 



through the Austrian army, said to his men, '' Silent, till you 
see the whites of their eyes." Twelve years after, at the 
battle of Prague, it was used again, " No firing till you see 
the whites of their eyes." \_Boston Memoi-ial Histo7-y.'\ 

Page 130. 

" The death of our truly amiable and worthy friend. Dr. 
Warren," wrote Samuel Adams to his wife, " is greatly afflict- 
ing. The language of friendship is. How shall we resign 
him!" [Quoted in Frothingham, p. 521.] And Abigail 
Adams wrote : " We want him in the senate ; we want him 
in his profession ; we want him in the field. We mourn for 
the citizen, the senator, the physician, and the warrior." 
[Same.] 

Warren was buried on the field. His remains were, 
however, removed, and they are now in Forest Hills. 

The whole number of Americans in the battle did not ex- 
ceed 1500; the British numbered between 2000 and 3000. 
[Bancroft, Vol. IV., Chap. XXXIX.] 

The American loss was : 150 killed, 270 woimded, 30 taken 
prisoners. S^Boston Me?norial History.'] 

The British loss was : 224 killed, 830 wounded. [Same.] 

A\^'\SHINnTON. 

See Irving's Life of Washington, Rccollectio7is of Wash 
ington, by Washington Parke Custis, Sparks's Washington, 
etc. 

Page 138. 

The Washington Elm still stands in Cambridge. 



NOTES. 177 

Page 141. 

"Their half-Indian equipments," etc. [Irving's Life of 
Washington, Chap. XXIV.] 

Page 143. 
'' I have made forty-two," etc. [Irving, Chap. XXV.] 

The Evacuation of Boston. 

See Frothingham's Siege of Boston and the Memorial 
History of Boston. 

Page 145. 

Putnam's present to Mrs. Gage. [See Recollections of Life 
in the Revolutiofiary Period, by H. E. Scudder.] General 
Gage's wife was an American. It was thought that the wings 
with which Gage's secrets seemed to be furnished were of 
her providing. 

Page 146. 

Burgoyne's play was entitled The Blockade of Boston. 

Page 152. 

A detachment of Putnam's men took possession of Boston 
on the 17th. The main body marched in on the 20th. 
"The small-pox prevailed in some parts of the town, and 
Washington was obliged to adopt stringent measures to pre- 
serve the health of the troops." [Frothingham.] 

The British fleet lingered for ten days in Nantasket Road. 
" During this period the enemy burnt the block-house and 
barracks and demolished the fortifications on Castle Wil- 
liam." [Same.] 



I ^8 NOTES. 

When the greater part of the fleet finally sailed for Hali- 
fax, a few vessels continued for two months to lie off 
Nantasket. In May James Mugford, an American captain, 
captured a British transport ship, the Hope, sent over from 
England with fresh military stores for the British. He got 
her cargo safely to Boston, but the British from the men-of- 
war at Nantasket put out in thirteen boats, two nights later, 
and attacked Captain Mugford's vessel and another as they 
lay near Point Shirley, where Mugford had caught aground. 
'' The crews of both fought their assailants with the greatest 
intrepidity. Captain Mugford sunk two of the boats. But 
while fighting bravely he received a mortal wound. He still 
continued to animate his men, exclaiming, ' Do not give up 
the ship ! You will beat them off ! ' In a few minutes he 
died. His men beat off the enemy's boats. No other 
American was killed." [Frothingham's Siege of Bosfoji, 

P- Z^Z-'] 

On the 14th of June some American troops, despatched 
for the purpose, drove the last remnant of the British fleet 
out of the harbor by means of cannon planted on Long 
Island. 



INDEX. 



Adams, John. 132, 135. 

Samuel, 39-54, 85, 96, 100, 116, 

163, 172. 
American Camp, 139-144. 
Andros, Sir Edmund, 4. 
Army, American, 115, 138. 
Attacks, Crispus, 48, 164. 

Beacon Hill, 8. 
Bernard, Governor, 15- 
Berni^re, De, 70-83, 107. 
Boston in 1760, 9, 155. 

Evacuation of, 145-154. 

Harbor, 67. 

Massacre, 44-49, 84, 164. 

Neck, 13. 

Port Bill, 67, 68, 167. 

Tea-Party, 55-66, 165. 

Breed's Hill, 119-131. 
British, March of, 101-103. 

Retreat of, 111-114. 

Brown, Captain, 70-83. 

Bunker Hill, Battle of, 115-131. 173" 

176. 
Burgoyne, John, 116, 129, 146. 
Buttrick, John, 108. 

Calderwell, James, 48. 
Castle Island, 150. 
Charlestown, 115-131. 152. 
Christ Church, 14. 
Clinton, General, 116, 123, 129. 



Colonies, English in America, 1-8. 
Committee of Correspondence, 56. 
Concord Fight, Tiie, 105, iii, 172. 



Congress, New York, 



162. 



Provincial, 69. 

Second Continental, 133. 

Copp's Hill, 14. 
Cotton Hill, 9. 
Craigie House, 143. 

Dalrymple, Colonel, 50. 
Dartmouth, The, 57. 
Davis, Isaac, 108. 
Dawes, William, 97. 
Dorchester Heights, 148-151. 

English Colonies in America, The, i. 
Evacuation of Boston, The, 145-154, 
177, 178. 

Faneuil Hall, 146. 

First Church, The, 10, 155. 

Fort Hill, 13. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 21. 

Gage, Thomas, 67, 83, 116, 123, 145, 

166, 
Gage's Scouts in Worcester and 

Concord, 70-83, 168. 
George III., 16, 19, 20. 
Gray, Samuel, 48. 
Griffin's Wharf, 13, 57, 165. 

179 



8o 



INDEX. 



Hancock, John, 85, 91, 96, 116, 132, 

135. 
Heath, William, 116, 174. 
Hosmer, Abner, no. 
Howe, General, 116, 123, 145, 149- 

152. 
Hutchinson, Thomas, 26-38, 49-54. 

67. 

King's Chapel, 10, 157, 161, 162. 
Knox, Henry, 46, 48, 142, 147, 164. 

Lexington, Battle of, 91-114, 169. 
Liberty Tree, 29, 36, 37, 146, 162. 

March of the British, loi, 171. 
Massachusetts a Commonwealth, 

154- 
Minute-Men, 70. 
Monroe, 172. 
Muzzy, 172. 

Non-Importation Agreement, 43. 

Nook's Hill, 00. 

North, Lord, 56. 

North Bridge, 107. 

North, Old, or Christ Church, 14. 

O'Connor, Captain, 65. 

Old South Church, 10, 50, 58, 85-90, 

146, 156. 
Old State House, 10, 44-49, 50-54. 
Oliver, Andrew, 13, 36, 162. 
Otis, James, 8. 

Parker, John, 99, 103-105. 
Percy, Lord, 112, 150. 
Pigot, General, 123. 124, 126. 
Pitcairn, Major, 102, 105, 130. 
Pomeroy, Seth, 116, 174. 
Preston, Captain, 47, 164. 



Prescott, William, 120-137, 174. 

Dr., 97. 

Provincial Congress, 69. 
Province House, 10, 157. 
Putnam, Israel, 115, 119, 125, 128, 
174, 177. 

Quincy, Dorothy, 97. 

Regiments, Sam Adams's, 50, 165. 
I Regulation Acts, 68. 
! Retreat of the British, no. 

Revere's Ride, 91, 169, 170. 
I Rotch, Mr., 58. 
! Rowe, John, 58. 

Schoolhouse, 10. 

Skirmish at Lexington, 103, 171. 

Smith, Colonel, loi. 

Stamp Act, 21. 

Repealed, 37. 

Stark, John, 115, 125. 
Sons of Liberty, 25, 29, 161. 
Suffolk Resolves, 68, 167. 

Taxation by Parliament, 20. 
Tea-Party, Boston, 55-66. 
Thomas, General, 148. 
Town House, 10. 

Ward, Artemas, 116, 174. 

Warren, Joseph, 84-90, 92, 112, 113, 

119, 125, 126, 169, 175, 176. 
Washington Elm, 138, 176. 
Washington, George, 132-144, 147- 

154. 
West Hill. 9. 
Winthrop, John, 10. 
Winthrop's House, 9. 
Writs of Assistance, 8, 



